J 


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RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 

OF 

JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND 
IMPRESSIONS 


OF 

James  A.  McNeill  Whistler 


BY 

ARTHUR  JEROME  EDDY 

AUTHOR   OF    "  DELIGHT  '.  THE 
SOUL   OF  ART,"  ETC. 


PHILADELPHIA  6^  LONDON 

J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 
1903 


Copyright,  1903 
By  J.  B.  Lippincott  Company 

Published  November,  1903 


Electrotyped  and  Printed  by 
B.  Lippincott  Company,  Philadelphia,  U.  8 


To  L.  O.  E. 


This  Sixteenth  Day  of  September 
Nineteen  Hundred  and  Three 


FOREWORD 


Most  of  what  is  contained  herein  has  been  col- 
lected from  time  to  time  within  the  past  ten  years 
and  jotted  down  for  use  in  certain  lectures  on 
Whistler  and  his  art.  The  lectures  were,  as  is  this 
book,  a  tribute  to  the  great  painter. 

The  reminiscences  are  mostly  personal.  Many  of 
the  anecdotes — though  perhaps  equally  familiar  to 
others — were  had  from  the  artist's  own  lips.  The 
views  concerning  his  art,  whether  right  or  wrong, 
were  formed  while  watching  him  at  work  day  after 
day,  and  after  many  interviews  in  which,  now  and 
then,  he  would  speak  plainly  concerning  art.  At 
the  same  time  not  so  much  as  a  thought  must  be 
attributed  to  him  unless  expressly  quoted. 

The  biographical  data — just  sufficient  to  furnish  a 
connecting  thread  and  aid  in  the  appreciation — have 
been  gathered  from  casual  sources,  and  are,  no 
doubt,  subject  to  incidental  corrections. 

Only  when  a  duly  authorized  "life  and  letters"  is 
published  by  those  who  have  access  to  the  material 
that  must  exist  will  the  great  artist  be  known  by  the 
world  as  he  really  was — a  profoundly  earnest,  serious, 
loving,  and  lovable  man. 

Meanwhile,  those  who  believe  in  his  art  must — 
like  the  writer — speak  their  convictions  for  what 
they  are  worth. 

7 


CONTENTS 


I 

PAGE 


Why  he  never  Returned  to  America — Tariff  on  Art — 

South  America — Valparaiso   15 

II 

A  Family  of  Soldiers — Grandfather  founded  Chicago — 
Birth — St.  Petersburg — West  Point — Coast  Survey 
— His  Military  Spirit   25 

III 

An  American — The  Puritan  Element — Attitude  of  Eng- 
land and  France — Racial  and  Universal  Qualities 
in  Art — Art-Loving  Nations   47 

IV 

Early  Days  in  Paris  and  Venice — Etchings,  Lithographs, 
and  Water-Colors — "Propositions"  and  "Ten 
o'Clock"   79 

V 

Chelsea  —  The  Royal  Academy — "Portrait  of  His 
Mother"  —  "  Carlyle"  — Grosvenor  Gallery — The 
"  Peacock  Room" — Concerning  Exhibitions  .  .  .  109 

VI 

The  Ruskin  Suit — His  Attitude  towards  the  World  and 
towards  Art — "The  Gentle  Art  of  Making  Ene- 
mies"— Critics  and  Criticism  140 

9 


CONTENTS 


VII 

PAGE 

Supreme  as  a  Colorist — Color  and  Music — His  Suscepti- 

bilty  to  Color — Ruskin  and  Color — Art  and  Nature  173 

VIII 

The  Royal  Society  of  British  Artists — In  Paris  once 

more — At  Home  and  at  Work  217 

IX 

Portrait-Painting — How  he  Differed  from  his  Great 
Predecessors — The  "Likeness" — Composition  of 
Color — No  Commercial  Side — Baronet  vs.  Butterfly  244 

X 

The  School  of  Carmen — In  Search  of  Health — Chelsea 

once  more — The  End   277 

Index  289 


10 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Whistler  Frontispiece. 

From  a  sketch  by  Rajon 

Crepuscule  in  Flesh  Color  and  Green  ;  Valpa- 
raiso   .       .       .       .  .    .  m.       .  .22 

Harmony  in  Gray  and  Green.  Portrait  of  Miss 
Alexander  50 

The  Lange  Leizen — of  the  Six  Marks — Purple 
and  Rose  58 

Plate  made  while  in  the  employ  of  the  Govern- 
ment at  Washington,  1854-55   .       .       .  .88 

Arrangement  in  Gray  and  Black.  Portrait  of 
the  Painter's  Mother  114 

Arrangement  in  Black.  La  Dame  au  Brode- 
quine  Jaune  120 

Arrangement  in  Gray  and  Black.  Portrait  of 
Thomas  Carlyle        .       .       .       .       .  .122 

Nocturne,  Black  and  Gold.  The  Falling 
Rocket        ........  140 

Blue  and  Silver;  Blue  Wave,  Biarritz      .       .  174 

Little  Rose,  Lyme  Regis  274 

Symphony  in  White,  No.  II.     The  Little  White 


"  This  man,  who  took  no  joy  in  the  ways  of  his  brethren 
— who  cared  not  for  conquest,  and  fretted  in  the  field — this 
designer  of  quaint  patterns — this  deviser  of  the  beautiful — 
who  perceived  in  Nature  about  him  curious  curvings,  as 
faces  are  seen  in  the  fire — this  dreamer  apart,  was  the  first 
artist." — Whistler's  "Ten  o' Clock." 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


OF 

JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 

¥¥¥ 

I 

Why  he  never  Returned  to  America — Tariff  oft 
Art — South  America — Valparaiso. 

Now  that  the  end  has  come  and  the  master  is  no 
more,  the  scattered  sheaves  of  stories  and  anecdotes, 
of  facts  and  fancies,  of  recollections  and  impressions 
may  be  gathered  together  from  the  four  quarters, 
and  the  story  of  his  work  be  told, — not  in  detail, 
not  in  sequence,  for  some  one  will  write  his  life, 
but  in  fragmentary  fashion  as  the  thoughts  occur. 

For  the  better  part  of  his  life  Whistler  fought  the 
prejudices  of  all  Europe  and  of  his  own  country. 

He  once  said,  with  a  tinge  of  bitterness  in  his 
tone  : 

"The  papers  in  America  seem  content  to  publish 
second-hand  whatever  they  find  about  me  in  English 
journals  that  is  mean  and  vindictive  or  that  savors 
of  ridicule.  Aside  from  the  hopeless  want  of  origi- 
nality displayed  in  echoing  the  stupidities  of  others, 
what  has  become  of  that  boasted  love  of  fair  play? 

15 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


Even  the  phlegmatic  Englishman  takes  the  part  of  a 
fellow-countryman  against  many — quite  regardless  ; 
but  the  American  press — bully  like — leans  to  the 
side  of  the  bully  and  weakly  cries,  bravo  !  whenever 
the  snarling  pack  on  this  side  snaps  at  the  heels  of 
an  American  who  mocks  them  at  the  doors  of  their 
own  kennels. 

"  One  would  think  the  American  people  would 
back  a  countryman — right  or  wrong — who  is 
fighting  against  odds  ;  but  for  thirty  years  they 
laughed  when  the  English  laughed,  sneered  when 
they  sneered,  scoffed  when  they  scoffed,  lied  when 
they  lied,  until, — well,  until  it  has  been  necessary  to 
reduce  both  nations  to  submission." 

For  a  time  he  worked  without  a  word,  then  : 

"But  when  France — in  all  things  discerning — 
proclaimed  the  truth,  America — still  blind — hastened 
to  shout  that  she,  too,  saw  the  light,  and  poured 
forth  adulation  ad  nauseam." 

"  But  would  you  say  that  Americans  are  as  dense 
as  the  English?" 

"  Heaven  forbid  that  the  Englishman's  one  un- 
deniable superiority  be  challenged  ;  but  an  English- 
man is  so  honest  in  his  stupidity  that  one  loves  him 
for  the — virtue  ;  whereas  the  American  is  a  '  smart 
Aleck'  in  his  ignorance,  and  therefore  intolerable." 

But  that  was  years  ago,  when  the  unconverted 
were  more  numerous  on  this  side, — there  are  still  a 
number  of  stubborn  dissenters,  but  in  the  chorus 
of  praise  their  voices  are  scarce  more  than  a  few 
discordant  notes. 

16 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


Of  late  Whistler  had  but  little  cause  to  complain 
of  lack  of  appreciation  on  this  side, — for,  while  an  art 
so  subtle  as  his  is  bound  to  be  more  or  less  misun- 
derstood, critics,  amateurs,  and  a  goodly  portion  of 
the  public  have  for  a  long  time  acknowledged  his 
greatness  as  an  etcher,  a  lithographer,  and  a  painter. 
In  fact,  for  at  least  ten  years  past  his  works  have 
been  gradually  coming  to  this  country — where  they 
belong.  England  and  Scotland  have  been  searched 
for  prints  and  paintings  until  the  great  collections — 
much  greater  than  the  public  know — of  his  works 
are  here.  Some  day  the  American  people  will  be 
made  more  fully  acquainted  with  the  beautiful  things 
he  has  done,  many  of  which  have  never  been  seen 
save  by  a  few  intimate  friends. 

The  struggle  for  recognition  was  long  and  bitter, 
— so  long  and  so  bitter  that  it  developed  in  him  the 
habits  of  controversy  and  whimsical  irritability  by 
which  he  was  for  a  generation  more  widely  known 
than  through  his  art. 

When  it  was  once  reported  that  he  was  going  to 
America,  he  said,  "It  has  been  suggested  many 
times  ;  but,  you  see,  I  find  art  so  absolutely  irritating 
to  the  people  that,  really,  I  hesitate  before  exas- 
perating another  nation." 

To  another  who  asked  him  when  he  was  coming, 
he  answered,  with  emphasis,  "  When  the  duty  on  art 
is  removed." 

The  duty  on  art  was  a  source  of  constant  irrita- 
tion to  Whistler, — for,  while  the  works  of  American 

17 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


artists  residing  abroad  are  admitted  free,  the  artist 
is  compelled  to  make  oaths,  invoices,  and  take  out 
consular  certificates,  and  pay  the  consular  fees  in  line 
with  the  shipper  of  olive  oil  and  cheese. 

There  was  even  a  time,  under  the  present  law, 
when  the  works  of  American  painters  were  not  ad- 
mitted free.  The  law  reads,  the  works  of  American 
artists  "residing  temporarily  abroad"  shall  be  ad- 
mitted free,  etc. 

Some  department  at  Washington  made  an  off- 
hand ruling  that  if  an  American  artist  had  resided 
more  than  five  years  abroad  his  works  would  be 
subject  to  duty  as  those  of  a  foreigner,  thereby 
expatriating  with  a  stroke  of  the  pen  four-fifths  of 
the  Americans  who  are  working  like  dogs — but  as 
artists — to  make  the  world  beautiful. 

To  Whistler,  Sargent,  and  the  many  prosperous 
ones  the  ruling  did  not  greatly  matter,  but  to  the 
younger  men  who  could  not  earn  money  enough  to 
get  home  it  did  matter,  and  for  a  time  it  looked  as 
if  American  art  in  Europe  would  be  obliterated, — for 
American  art  in  Europe  depends  for  its  support  and 
aggressiveness  on  the  American  artists  over  there. 
Drive  these  men  home,  or  expatriate  them,  so  as  to 
compel  them  to  cast  their  lots  with  France,  or  Eng- 
land, or  Italy,  and  what  would  become  of  those 
American  sections  in  foreign  exhibitions  which  for 
at  least  a  dozen  years  past  have  commanded  the 
serious  consideration  of  all  thoughtful  observers  as 
containing  elements  of  strength,  sobriety,  and  prom- 
ise found  nowhere  else  in  the  entire  world  of  art? 

18 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


Happily  an  appeal  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas-  • 
ury — a  man  interested  in  art — resulted  in  an  imme- 
diate reversal  of  the  ruling,   and  the  works  of 
American  artists  come  in  free  unless  the  artist  de- 
clares his  intention  of  residing  abroad  permanently. 

But  while  the  ban  on  American  painting  is  lifted, 
sculpture  is  in  a  bad  way.  Under  the  law  only 
sculpture  "wrought  by  hand"  from  marble  or 
metal  by  the  sculptor  is  to  be  classed  as  art.  Inas- 
much as  the  sculptor  never  did  work  bronze  by  hand, 
and  nowadays  very  rarely  touches  the  marble, 
there  is  no  sculpture  which  comes  within  the  law. 
The  federal  courts  of  New  York,  high  and  low, 
have  soberly  held  that  unless  it  is  shown  that  bronzes 
are  "wrought  by  hand"  by  the  sculptor,  instead  of 
cast  from  plaster,  which  in  turn  is  made  from  the 
clay,  they  are  commercial  products  and  classed  with 
bronze  cooking  utensils  at  forty-five  per  cent.  duty. 
However,  a  federal  judge  in  Chicago,  somewhat 
more  familiar  with  art  processes,  has  held  that  the 
New  York  decisions  are  arrant  nonsense,  and  orig- 
inal bronzes  by  Rodin,  St.  Gaudens,  and  other 
sculptors,  made  in  the  only  known  way  of  producing 
bronzes,  should  be  classed  as  art.  What  other 
federal  courts  may  hold — each,  under  our  wonderful 
system,  having  the  right  to  its  opinion  until  the 
Supreme  Court  is  called  upon  to  finally  end  the  dif- 
ferences— Heaven  alone  knows  ;  but  for  the  present 
it  behooves  lovers  of  art  to  bring  in  their  original 
bronzes  and  marbles  by  way  of  Chicago. 

These  were   some  of  the  things  Whistler — in 
19 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


common  with  many  an  ordinary  man — could  not 
understand. 

A  few  years  ago  an  effort  was  made  to  have  an 
exhibition  of  his  pictures  in  Boston.  He  was  ap- 
pealed to,  but  refused  : 

"  God  bless  me,  why  should  you  hold  an  exhi- 
bition of  pictures  in  America?  The  people  do  not 
care  for  art." 

"  How  do  you  know?  You  have  not  been  there 
for  many  years." 

"How  do  I  know!  Why,  haven't  you  a  law  to 
keep  out  pictures  and  statues  ?  Is  it  not  in  black 
and  white  that  the  works  of  the  great  masters  must 
not  enter  America,  that  they  are  not  wanted  " 

"But  " 

"There  are  no  'buts*  about  it  except  the  fool 
who  butts  his  head  against  the  barrier  you  have 
erected.  A  people  that  tolerates  such  a  law  has  no 
love  for  art, — their  protestation  is  mere  pretence." 

That  a  great  nation  should  deliberately  discourage 
the  importation  of  beautiful  things,  should  wallow 
in  the  mire  of  ugliness  and  refuse  to  be  cleansed  by 
art,  was  to  him  a  mystery, — for  what  difference  does 
it  make  whether  painting,  poetry,  and  music  come 
out  of  the  East  or  out  of  the  West,  so  long  as  they 
add  to  the  happiness  of  a  people  ?  And  why  should 
painting  and  sculpture  find  the  gate  closed  when 
poetry  and  music  are  admitted  ? 

He  did  not  know  the  petty  commercial  consider- 
ations which  control  certain  of  the  painters  and 

20 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


sculptors  and  some  of  the  institutions  supposed  to 
be  devoted  to  art. 

For  is  not  art  the  most  "infant"  of  all  the  "infant 
industries"  of  this  great  commercial  nation?  And 
should  not  the  brush-worker  at  home  be  given  his 
meed  of  protection  against  the  pauper  brush-workers 
of  Europe — even  against  Rembrandt  and  Velasquez 
and  all  the  glorious  Italians? 

Beethoven  and  Mendelssohn  and  Mozart,  Shake- 
speare and  Milton, — their  works,  even  their  original 
manuscripts,  if  in  existence,  though  costly  beyond 
many  paintings,  come  in  without  let  or  hinderance  ; 
but  the  work  of  the  painter,  the  original  manuscript 
of  the  poet  in  line,  of  the  composer  of  harmonies 
in  color,  may  not  cross  the  border  without  tribute. 

A  symphony  in  sound  is  welcomed  ;  a  symphony 
in  color  is  rejected.  Why  this  discrimination  in 
favor  of  the  ear  and  against  the  eye  ? 

There  is  no  reason,  but  an  inordinate  amount  of 
selfishness,  in  it  all.  The  wire-pulling  painter  at 
home,  backed  up  by  the  commercially-managed  art 
institution,  makes  himself  felt  in  the  chambers  at 
Washington  where  tariffs  are  arranged,  and  paint- 
ing and  sculpture  are  removed  from  the  free  list  and 
placed  among  the  pots  and  kettles  of  commerce. 

Where  is  the  poet  and  where  is  the  musician  in 
this  distribution  of  advantages  ?  Why  should  Ameri- 
can poetry  and  American  music  be  left  to  compete 
with  the  whole  world  while  American  painting  and 
American  sculpture  are  suitably  encouraged  by  a 
tariff  of  twenty  per  cent.  ? — a  figure  fixed,  no  doubt, 

21 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


as  is  the  plea,  to  make  good  the  difference  in  wages, 
— pauper  labor  of  Europe, — pauper  artists.  Alas  ! 
too  true  ;  shut  the  vagabonds  out  that  their  aristo- 
cratic American  confreres  residing  at  home  may 
maintain  their  "  standard  of  living." 

Of  all  the  peoples  on  the  face  of  the  globe,  high 
and  low,  civilized  and  savage,  there  is  just  one  that 
discourages  the  importation  of  the  beautiful,  and  that 
one  happens  to  be  the  youngest  and  the  richest  of 
all — the  one  most  in  need  of  what  it  wilfully  ex- 
cludes. 

Notwithstanding  all  these  reasons  for  not  coming, 
he  had  a  great  desire  to  visit  this  country,  and  in 
letters  to  friends  on  this  side  he  would  again  and 
again  express  his  firm  intention  to  come  the  follow- 
ing summer  or  winter,  as  the  season  might  be.  The 
death  of  Mrs.  Whistler,  some  six  years  ago,  and  his 
own  ill  health  prevented, — but  there  was  no  lack  of 
desire. 

Strangely  enough,  he  did  take  a  sailing-ship  for 
South  America,  away  back  in  the  sixties,  and  while 
there  painted  the  "  Crepuscule  in  Flesh  Color  and 
Green;  Valparaiso"  and  the  "Nocturne  Blue  and 
Gold  ;  Valparaiso." 

Speaking  of  the  voyage,  he  said  : 

' '  I  went  out  in  a  slow  sailing-ship,  the  only  passenger. 
During  the  voyage  I  made  quite  a  number  of  sketches  and 
painted  one  or  two  sea-views, — pretty  good  things  I  thought 
at  the  time.    Arriving  in  port,  I  gave  them  to  the  purser  to 

22 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


take  back  to  England  for  me.  On  my  return,  some  time  later, 
I  did  not  find  the  package,  and  made  inquiries  for  the  purser. 
He  had  changed  ships  and  disappeared  entirely.  Many  years 
passed,  when  one  day  a  friend,  visiting  my  studio,  said  : 

"  '  By  the  way,  I  saw  some  marines  by  you  in  the  oddest 
place  you  can  imagine.' 

' '  '  Where  ?'  I  asked,  amazed. 

"  '  I  happened  in  the  room  of  an  old  fellow  who  had  once 
been  a  purser  on  a  South  American  ship,  and  while  talking 
with  him  saw  tacked  up  on  the  wall  several  sketches  which 
I  recognized  as  yours.  I  looked  at  them  closely,  and  asked 
the  fellow  where  he  got  them. 

"  '  "  Oh,  these  things,"  he  said  ;  "  why,  a  chap  who  went 
out  with  us  once  painted  them  on  board,  off-hand  like,  and 
gave  them  to  me.    Don't  amount  to  much,  do  they  ?" 

"  '  "Why,  man,  they  are  by  Whistler." 

a  *  a  Whistler, ' '  he  said,  blankly.     ' '  Who' s  Whistler  ?' ' 

t*  <  "Why,  Whistler  the  artist, — the  great  painter." 

"  '  "  Whistler,  Whistler.  I  believe  that  was  his  name.  But 
that  chap  warn't  no  painter.  He  was  just  a  swell  who  went 
out  with  the  captain  ;  he  thought  he  could  paint  some,  and 
gave  me  those  things  when  we  got  to  Valparaiso.  No,  I 
don't  care  to  let  them  go, — for,  somehow  or  other,  they  look 
more  like  the  sea  than  real  pictures. "  '  " 

Whistler  made  several  attempts  to  find  these 
sketches,  but  without  success. 

As  illustrating  his  facility  of  execution  when  time 
pressed,  he  painted  the  "  Crepuscule  in  Flesh  Color 
and  Green,"  which  is  a  large  canvas  and  one  of  his 
best  things,  at  a  single  sitting,  having  prepared  his 
colors  in  advance  of  the  chosen  hour. 

He  could  paint  with  the  greatest  rapidity  when 
out-of-doors  and  it  was  important  to  catch  certain 
efifects  of  light  and  color. 

23 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


In  1894  he  exhibited  in  Paris  three  small  marines 
which  were  marvels  of  clearness,  force,  and  pre- 
cision ;  he  had  painted  them  in  a  few  hours  while  in 
a  small  boat,  which  the  boatman  steadied  against  the 
waves  as  best  he  could.  He  placed  the  canvas 
against  the  seat  in  front  of  him  and  worked  away 
direct  from  nature. 


24 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


A  Family  of  Soldiers — Grandfather  founded  Chi- 
cago— Birth — St.  Petersburg —  West  Point — 
Coast  Survey — His  Military  Spirit. 

He  came  of  a  race  of  fighters.  The  family  is 
found  towards  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  in 
Oxfordshire,  at  Goring  and  Whitechurch  on  the 
Thames  ;  one  branch  was  connected  with  the  Web- 
sters  of  Battle-Abbey,  and  descendants  still  live  in 
the  vicinity  ;  another  branch  is  in  Essex,  and  from 
this  sprang  Dr.  Daniel  Whistler,  President  of  the 
College  of  Physicians  in  London  in  the  time  of 
Charles  the  Second,  and  described  as  "a  quaint 
gentleman  of  rare  humor,"  and  frequently  men- 
tioned in  "  Pepys's  Diary." 

From  the  Oxfordshire  branch,  one  Ralph,  a  son 
of  Hugh  Whistler  of  Goring,  went  to  Ireland  and 
founded  the  Irish  branch  from  which  sprang  Major 
John  Whistler,  the  first  representative  of  the  family 
in  America,  and  grandfather  of  the  painter. 

Major  Whistler  was  a  British  soldier  under  Bur- 
goyne,  and  was  taken  prisoner  at  the  battle  of 
Saratoga.  At  the  close  of  the  war  he  returned  to 
England  and  made  a  runaway  match  with  the 
daughter  of  a  Sir  Edward  Bishop. 

25 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


Returning  to  this  country  with  his  wife,  he  settled 
at  Hagerstown,  Maryland,  and  soon  after  enlisted  in 
the  American  army. 

"  He  was  made  a  sergeant-major  in  a  regiment 
that  was  called  'the  infantry  regiment.'  Afterwards 
he  was  adjutant  of  Garther's  regiment  of  the  levies 
of  1 79 1,  which  brought  him  into  General  St.  Clair's 
command.  He  was  severely  wounded  November 
4,  1 791,  in  a  battle  with  the  Indians  on  the  Miami 
River.  In  1792  'the  regiment  of  infantry'  was,  by 
Act  of  Congress,  designated  as  the  '  First  Regiment,' 
and  to  this  John  Whistler  was  assigned  as  first  lieu- 
tenant. In  November,  1796,  he  was  promoted  to 
the  adjutancy,  and  in  July,  1797,  he  was  commis- 
sioned a  captain." 

While  captain  of  the  "First  Regiment,"  then 
stationed  at  Detroit,  he  was,  in  1803,  ordered  to 
proceed  to  the  present  site  of  the  city  of  Chicago 
and  construct  Fort  Dearborn. 

He  and  his  command  arrived  on  August  17,  at 
two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  at  once  staked  out 
the  ground  and  began  the  erection  of  palisades  for 
protection  against  the  Indians. 

The  captain  had  with  him  at  the  time  one  son, 
William,  who  was  a  lieutenant  in  the  army,  and  who 
was  commander  of  Fort  Dearborn  in  1833,  when 
the  fort  was  finally  abandoned  as  a  military  post. 
Another  son,  John,  remained  in  the  East. 

On  the  completion  of  the  fort  the  captain  brought 
out  the  remaining  members  of  his  family, — his  wife, 
five  daughters,  and  his  third  son,  George,  then  but 

26 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


three  years  old,  and  afterwards  the  father  of  the 
artist. 

"The  daughters  were  Sarah,  who  married  James 
Abbott,  of  Detroit, — the  ceremony  took  place  in  the 
fort,  shortly  after  the  family  came  ;  the  wedding-trip 
was  made  to  Detroit  on  horseback,  over  an  Indian 
trail  and  the  old  territorial  road  ;  they  had  two 
nights  of  camping  out ;  their  effects  were  carried  on 
pack-horses, — Ann,  married  Major  Marsh,  of  the 
army ;  Catherine,  married  Major  Hamilton,  of  the 
army ;  Harriet,  married  Captain  Phelan,  also  of  the 
army ;  Caroline — eight  months  old  when  her  father 
built  Fort  Dearborn — was  married  in  Detroit,  in 
1840,  to  William  R.  Wood,  of  Sandwich,  Georgia." 

When  the  army  was  reduced  in  June,  181 5, 
Major  Whistler  was  retired,  and  in  18 18  appointed 
military  storekeeper  at  Jefferson  Barracks,  St  Louis. 
He  died  at  Bellefontaine,  Missouri,  in  1827.  "  He 
was  a  brave  officer  and  became  the  progenitor  of  a 
line  of  brave  and  efficient  soldiers." 

To  a  visitor  from  Chicago  the  artist  once  said  : 

"  Chicago,  dear  me,  what  a  wonderful  place  !  I 
really  ought  to  visit  it  some  day, — for,  you  know, 
my  grandfather  founded  the  city  and  my  uncle  was 
the  last  commander  of  Fort  Dearborn." 

George  Washington  Whistler,  the  father  of  the 
painter,  became  an  engineer  of  great  reputation, 
rose  to  the  rank  of  major,  and  in  1842  accepted  the 
invitation  of  Czar  Nicholas  to  superintend  the  con- 
struction of  the  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow  Railroad, 

27 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


and  it  is  said  that,  with  the  exception  of  John  Quincy 
Adams,  no  American  in  Russia  was  held  in  such 
high  estimation. 

Major  Whistler  has  been  described  as  a  very- 
handsome  man  ;  he  had  rather  long  curling  hair 
which  framed  a  most  agreeable  face.  "  He  might 
have  been  taken  for  an  artist,  rather  than  for  a 
military  engineer.  Yet  he  was,  in  every  sense,  a 
manly  man,  with  most  attractive  expression  and 
ways." 

Whistler's  mother — his  father's  second  wife — was 
Anna  Mathilda  McNeill,  a  daughter  of  Dr.  C.  D. 
McNeill,  of  Wilmington,  North  Carolina. 

So  much  for  the  stock  from  which  Whistler  sprang, 
a  line  of  able  men  and  good  fighters.  In  a  round- 
about way  he  must  have  inherited  some  of  the  traits 
of  that  "  quaint  gentleman  of  rare  humor"  so  fre- 
quently mentioned  by  garrulous  Samuel  Pepys,  who 
says  in  one  place,  "  Dr.  Whistler  told  a  pretty  story. 
.  .  .  Their  discourse  was  very  fine  ;  and  if  I  should 
be  put  out  of  my  office,  I  do  take  great  content  in 
the  liberty  I  shall  be  at  of  frequenting  these  gentle- 
men's company." 

It  is  reported  that  Whistler  once  stated  he  was 
born  in  St.  Petersburg,  and  he  certainly  seemed  to 
take  delight  in  mystifying  people  as  to  the  date  and 
place  of  his  birth, — part  of  his  habitual  indifference 
to  the  sober  requirements  of  those  solemn  meta- 
physical entities  Time  and  Space. 

One  friend  has  insisted  in  print  upon  Baltimore 
28 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 

as  his  birthplace,  another  upon  Stonington,  Con- 
necticut. 

His  model  once  asked  him : 

"  Where  were  you  born  ?" 

"  I  never  was  born,  my  child  ;  I  came  from  on 

high.- 

Quite  unabashed,  the  model  retorted  : 
"  Now,  that  shows  how  easily  we  deceive  our- 
selves in  this  world,  for  I  should  say  you  came  from 
below." 

The  Salon  catalogue  of  1882  referred  to  him  as 
"McNeill  Whistler,  born  in  the  United  States." 

His  aversion  to  discussing  dates,  the  lapse  of  years, 
the  time  it  would  take  to  paint  a  portrait,  or  do  any- 
thing else,  amounted  to  a  superstition. 

For  him  time  did  not  exist.  He  did  not  carry  a 
watch,  and  no  obtrusive  clock  was  to  be  seen  or 
heard  anywhere  about  him.  He  did  not  believe  in 
mechanical  devices  for  nagging  and  prompting  much- 
goaded  humanity.  If  he  were  invited  to  dinner,  it 
was  always  the  better  part  of  wisdom  to  order  the 
dinner  at  least  a  half-hour  later  than  the  moment 
named  in  the  invitation. 

He  once  had  an  engagement  to  dine  with  some 
distinguished  people  in  a  distant  part  of  London. 
A  friend  who  wished  to  be  on  time  was  waiting  for 
him  in  the  studio.  It  was  growing  late,  but  Whistler 
kept  on  painting,  more  and  more  absorbed. 

"My  dear  fellow,"  his  friend  urged  at  last,  "it  is 

frightfully  late,  and  you  have  to  dine  with  Lady  . 

Don't  you  think  you'd  better  stop  ?" 

29 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


"Stop?"  fairly  shrieked  Whistler.  "Stop,  when 
everything  is  going  so  beautifully?  Go  and  stuff 
myself  with  food  when  I  can  paint  like  this  ?  Never ! 
Never  !  Besides,  they  won't  do  anything  until  I  get 
there, — they  never  do  !" 

An  official  connected  with  an  international  art 
exhibition  was  about  to  visit  Paris  to  consult  with 
the  artists.  To  save  time,  he  sent  notes  ahead 
making  appointments  at  his  hotel  with  the  different 
men  at  different  hours.  To  Whistler  he  sent  a  note 
fixing  a  day  at  "4.30  precisely,"  whereupon  Whist- 
ler regretfully  replied  : 

"  Dear  Sir  :  I  have  received  your  letter  announcing  that 
you  will  arrive  in  Paris  on  the  — th.  I  congratulate  you.  I 
never  have  been  able,  and  never  shall  be  able,  to  be  any- 
where at  '  4. 30  precisely. ' 

' 1  Yours  most  faithfully, 

"J.  McN.  Whistler." 

To  the  stereotyped  inquiry  of  the  sitter  : 
"About  how  many  sittings  do  you  require,  Mr. 
Whistler?" 

"  Dear  me,  how  can  I  tell  ?  Perhaps  one,  per- 
haps— more." 

"But — can't  you  give  me  some  idea,  so  I  can 
arrange  " 

"Bless  me,  but  you  must  not  permit  the  doing 
of  so  trivial  a  thing  as  a  portrait  to  interfere  with 
the  important  affairs  of  life.  We  will  just  paint  in 
those  odd  moments  when  you  have  nothing  better 
to  do." 

30 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


"  Suppose  I  am  compelled  to  leave  the  city  before 
it  is  finished  ?" 

"You  will  return  next  summer,  and  we  will  re- 
sume where  we  left  off,  as  the  continued-story-teller 
says." 

And  no  amount  of  persuasion  could  get  him  to 
say  when  he  expected  to  finish  a  work. 
He  would  frequently  say  : 

"We  will  just  go  ahead  as  if  there  were  one  long 
holiday  before  us,  without  thinking  of  the  end,  and 
some  day,  when  we  least  expect  it,  the  picture  is 
finished  ;  but  if  we  keep  thinking  of  the  hours  in- 
stead of  the  work,  it  may  never  come  to  an  end." 

This  indifference  to  time  kept  him  young — to  the 
very  last.  He  persistently  refused  to  note  the  flight 
of  years. 

There  was  once  a  very  old  Indian,  how  old  no 
one  knew,  in  Northern  Michigan  who,  when  asked 
his  age  by  the  pertinaciously  curious,  always  replied, 
"I  do  not  count  the  years  ;  white  people  do — and 
die." 

His  father  went  to  Lowell,  Massachusetts,  in  1834 
to  take  charge  of  the  construction  of  the  canals  and 
locks.  He  resided  in  a  house  on  Worthen  Street, 
and  there  Whistler  was  born  on  July  10. 

In  a  history  of  Lowell  it  is  stated  that  Whistler 
was  probably  born  in  what  was  known  as  the  Paul 
Moody  house,  a  fine  old  house  which  stood  on  the 
site  of  the  present  city  hall ;  but  quite  possibly  the 
family  occupied  a  house  owned  by  the  proprietors 

31 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


of  the  locks  and  canals,  which  still  stands  and  is 
pointed  out  as  the  "  Locks  and  Canal  house." 

The  old  parish  book  of  St.  Anne's  Episcopal 
Church  contains  the  following  entry  under  1834  : 

"  Nov.  9,  Baptized  James  Abbott,  infant  son  of 
George  Washington  and  Anna  Mathilda  Whistler. 
Sponsors,  the  parents.    T.  Edson." 

Rev.  Theodore  Edson  was  the  rector  of  the  church. 

The  adoption  of  his  mother's  maiden  name, 
McNeill,  as  part  of  his  own  was  apparently  an  after- 
thought. 

He  had  two  brothers,  William  and  Kirke,  a  half- 
brother,  George,  and  a  half-sister,  Deborah,  who 
married  Seymour  Haden,  the  well-known  physician 
and  etcher,  who  figures  in  "Gentle  Art"  as  the  "  Sur- 
geon-etcher." Of  the  brothers,  Kirke  died  young, 
George  remained  in  this  country,  William  became  a 
well-known  physician  in  London,  dying  a  few  years 
ago. 

The  family  afterwards  spent  a  short  time  in  Ston- 
ington,  where  Major  Whistler  had  charge  of  the  con- 
struction of  the  railroad  to  Providence.  They  used 
to  drive  to  church  in  Westerly  in  a  chaise  fitted 
with  railway  wheels,  so  as  to  travel  on  the  tracks. 
There  were  no  Sunday  trains  in  those  days,  so  the 
track  was  clear.  An  ingenious  device  enabled  the 
horse  to  cross  the  culverts. 

A  locomotive  named  "Whistler"  after  the  dis- 
tinguished engineer — a  felicitous  name — was  in  use 
until  comparatively  few  years  ago. 

32 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


In  the  spring  of  1840  Major  Whistler  was  ap- 
pointed consulting  engineer  for  the  Western  Rail- 
road, running  from  Springfield  to  Albany,  and  the 
family  moved  to  Springfield  and  lived  in  what  "  is 
now  known  as  Ethan  Chapin  homestead,  on  Chestnut 
Street,  north  of  Edwards  Street." 

Old  residents  of  the  vicinity  claim  to  remember 
"  well  the  curly  locks  and  bright,  animated  counte- 
nance of  the  boy,"  and  that  the  three  boys  "were 
always  full  of  mischief," — not  an  uncommon  trait 
in  youngsters,  probably  still  less  uncommon  in  Whist- 
lers. 

Shortly  after  the  railroad  to  Albany  was  opened  a 
wreck  occurred,  and  a  niece  of  Major  Whistler,  who 
was  on  her  way  to  visit  him,  was  badly  injured.  She 
was  taken  to  his  house,  and  it  was  a  long  time  before 
she  recovered. 

The  accident  made  a  strong  impression  on  Whist- 
ler, and  possibly  accounts  for  some  of  the  dislike  he 
often  showed  towards  travelling  alone.  It  was  only 
in  crossing  crowded  streets  and  in  the  confusion  and 
bustle  of  travel  that  he  showed  what  might  be  called 
nervousness. 

With  characteristic  gallantry  he  would  offer  a  lady 
his  arm  to  aid  her  in  crossing  the  Strand  or  the 
Boulevard,  but  he  made  sure  of  the  places  of  refuge 
and  took  no  chances  ;  if  in  a  hurry,  she  would  better 
cross  alone. 

Once,  not  many  years  ago,  he  was  at  Dieppe,  and 
wrote  a  friend  in  Paris  almost  daily  that  he  would  be 
in  the  city  to  see  him.    A  week  passed,  and  the 
3  33 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


friend,  fearing  he  would  be  obliged  to  leave  without 
seeing  Whistler,  wrote  him  he  would  come  to  Dieppe 
and  see  the  work  he  was  doing  there,  to  which  sug- 
gestion Whistler  replied  most  cordially  by  wire. 

The  friend  packed  and  went,  expecting  to  stay  a 
night  or  two  at  least ;  but,  lo  !  Whistler,  bag  in  hand, 
met  him  in  the  village  to  take  the  next  train  back  ; 
whereupon  the  friend,  much  surprised,  said  : 

"  If  you  intended  going  to  Paris  to-day,  why 
under  the  sun  did  you  let  me  ride  half  a  day  to  get 
here  ?" 

"  Well,  you  see,  I  don't  like  to  travel  alone  ;  happy 
thought  yours  to  come  down  after  me." 

And  back  they  went,  after  a  delightful  luncheon  in 
that  little  old  restaurant  near  the  cathedral,  where 
there  is  an  ancient  stone  trough  filled  with  water  for 
cooling  and  cleaning  vegetables.  The  luncheon,  the 
way  it  was  ordered,  and  the  running  fire  of  comment 
and  directions  by  Whistler  to  the  stout  old  woman 
who  did  it  all,  were  worth  the  journey  to  Dieppe. 

Whistler  will  be  mourned  more  by  these  lowly 
people  who  used  to  serve  him  with  pleasure,  because 
he  took  such  a  vital  interest  in  what  they  did,  than 
by  many  who  own  his  works. 

A  diary  kept  by  the  artist's  mother  contains  this 
entry,  under  date  of  July  10,  1844  : 

"  A  poem  selected  by  my  darling  Jamie,  and  put 
under  my  plate  at  the  breakfast- table,  as  a  surprise 
on  his  tenth  birthday." 

The  little  poem  of  twelve  lines  was  addressed 
34 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


"To  My  Mother,"  and  subscribed  "Your  Little 
James." 

When  the  boy  was  eleven  years  old,  Sir  William 
Allen,  a  Scotch  painter,  visited  the  family.  Mrs. 
Whistler's  diary  contains  the  following  entry  : 

"The  chat  then  turned  upon  the  subject  of  Sir  William 
Allen's  painting  of  Peter  the  Great  teaching  the  majiks  to 
make  ships.  This  made  Jimmie's  eyes  express  so  much 
interest  that  his  love  for  the  art  was  discovered,  and  Sir 
William  must  needs  see  his  attempts.  When  my  boys  had 
said  good-night,  the  great  artist  remarked  to  me,  '  Your  little 
boy  has  uncommon  genius,  but  do  not  urge  him  beyond  his 
inclination.'  I  told  him  his  gift  had  only  been  cultivated  as 
an  amusement,  and  that  I  was  obliged  to  interfere,  or  his  ap- 
plication would  confine  him  more  than  we  approved." 

The  diary  records  the  same  year  a  visit  to  the  old 
palace  at  PeterhorT,  where  "  our  Jimmie  was  so  saucy 
as  to  laugh"  at  Peter's  own  paintings. 

When  Major  Whistler  first  went  to  Russia  he  left 
"Jamie"  for  a  time  in  Stonington  with  his  aunt, 
and  the  two  older  children,  George  and  Deborah,  in 
England. 

After  the  death  of  Major  Whistler,  in  St.  Peters- 
burg, in  1849,  the  wife  and  children  returned  to  this 
country,  and  lived  for  a  time  in  Connecticut. 

Whistler  wished  to  enter  West  Point,  and  he  per- 
suaded his  half-brother  to  write  Daniel  Webster, 
to  enlist  his  sympathy.  The  letter  was  dated  Febru- 
ary 19,  1 85 1.    It  referred  to  the  father's  career  and 

35 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


services  and  asked  that  James  be  appointed  to  the 
Academy. 

He  was  appointed  by  President  Fillmore,  and 
entered  July  I,  185 1,  registering  from  Pomfret, 
Windham  County,  Connecticut,  where  his  mother 
was  then  living.  1 

Whistler  was  so  small  in  stature  and  physique  that 
it  is  surprising  he  was  received  ;  the  military  record 
of  his  family  was  no  doubt  the  controlling  considera- 
tion. 

He  possessed  all  the  pugnacity  and  courage  re- 
quired for  a  soldier,  and  the  military  spirit  was  strong 
in  him,  yet  such  was  his  bent  towards  art  that  his 
career  at  the  Academy  was  not  one  of  glory  ;  but  he 
became  very  popular  with  his  comrades  and  proba- 
bly led  in  all  their  mischievous  pranks. 

The  official  records  show  that  at  the  end  of  the 
first  year,  in  1852,  he  stood  forty-one  in  a  class  of 
fifty-two, — his  standing  in  the  different  studies  being 
as  follows:  Mathematics  47,  English  studies  51, 
French  9.  At  the  end  of  his  second  year  he  stood 
number  one  in  drawing,  but  was  not  examined  in 
other  studies,  being  absent  with  leave  on  account 
of  ill  health.  In  1854  his  standing  was  as  follows  : 
Philosophy  39,  Drawing  1,  Chemistry  deficient. 
For  his  deficiency  in  chemistry  he  was  discharged 
from  the  Academy  on  June  16,  1854. 

A  lady  once  asked  him  why  he  left  the  Academy, 
and  he  replied  : 

"  If  silicon  had  been  a  gas,  madame,  I  should  have 
been  a  soldier." 

36 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


On  leaving  West  Point  he  took  it  into  his  head 
that  Fate  had  intended  him  for  a  sailor,  and  he  tried 
to  enter  the  Naval  Academy  at  Annapolis,  but  he 
could  not  get  the  appointment. 

Through  an  old  friend  of  the  family,  Captain  Ben- 
ham,  of  the  Coast  and  Geodetic  Survey,  he  was 
employed  as  draughtsman  in  that  department  in 
Washington  from  November  7,  1854,  to  February 
12,  1855,  at  one  dollar  and  a  half  a  day.  In  these 
days  he  signed  himself  James  A.  Whistler.  His 
lodgings  were  in  an  old  house  still  standing  on  the 
northeast  corner  of  E  and  Twelfth  Streets.  He  was 
always  late  to  breakfast,  and  scribbled  pictures  on 
the  unpapered  walls.  When  the  landlord  objected, 
he  said  : 

"  Now,  now,  never  mind  ;  I'll  not  charge  you  any- 
thing for  the  decoration." 

Neither  time  nor  the  rules  of  the  department  had 
any  terrors  for  him.  Even  in  those  early  days  he 
was  a  law  unto  himself.  In  one  instance  the  fol- 
lowing entry  appears  against  his  name  : 

"Two  days  absent  and  two  days  deducted  from 
monthly  pay  for  time  lost  by  coming  late  to 
office." 

To  correct  these  dilatory  habits  Captain  Benham 
conceived  the  brilliant  idea  of  having  a  fellow-clerk 
of  punctual  habits  call  each  morning  for  Whistler 
and  bring  him  to  the  office  on  time.  The  captain 
believed  that  the  example  and  influence  of  a  more 
methodical  companion  would  reform  the  erring  one 
and  get  him  to  the  office  at  nine  o'clock  ;  but  it 

37 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


turned  out  quite  otherwise,  for  Whistler  proved  so 
charming  a  host  each  morning  that  both  were  late. 

At  the  end  of  a  week  the  mentor  reported  that 
his  efforts  were  wasted  and  unless  relieved  he,  too, 
would  acquire  the  obnoxious  habit,  for  each  morning 
Whistler  managed  to  so  interest  him  in  the  mysteries 
of  coffee-making  and  the  advantages  of  late  break- 
fasts that  it  was  impossible  to  get  away. 

Of  him  and  his  habits  in  those  days  a  fellow- 
draughtsman,1  who  is  still  in  the  service,  says  : 

He  was  about  one  year  younger  than  myself,  and  there- 
fore about  twenty  years  old  at  that  time.  He  stayed  but  a 
little  over  three  months,  and  I  have  not  met  him  since,  but 
retain  a  more  vivid  recollection  of  his  sojourn  than  of  that 
of  many  other  draughtsmen  who  succeeded  him  and  remained 
much  longer.  This  may  be  partly  for  the  reason  that  Cap- 
tain Benham,  who  was  then  in  charge  of  the  office,  told  me 
that  Whistler's  father  had  been  a  star  graduate  of  West 
Point  and  a  distinguished  engineer,  and  requested  me  to  be 
attentive  to  the  new  appointee  ;  it  may  also  be  for  the  reason 
that  there  was  something  peculiar  about  Whistler's  person 
and  actions  quite  at  variance  with  the  ordinary  run  of  my 
experience. 

"His  style  of  dress  indicated  an  indifference  to  fashion 
which,  under  circumstances,  might  be  changed  into  emanci- 
pation when  fashion,  for  instance,  went  into  extremes  and 
exacted  personal  discomforts.  I  certainly  cannot  remember 
Whistler  with  a  high-standing  collar  and  silk  hat,  which  was 
then  the  universal  custom.  Classical  models  seemed  to  be 
his  preference,  a  short  circular  cloak  and  broad-brimmed 
felt  hat  gave  him  a  finish  which  reminded  one  of  some  of 


1  Mr.  A.  Lindenkohl,  now  the  oldest  draughtsman  in  the 
department. 

38 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


Rembrandt's  celebrated  portraits.  His  tout  ensemble  had  a 
strong  tinge  of  Bohemianism  which  suggested  that  his  tastes 
and  habits  had  been  acquired  in  Paris,  or,  more  concisely- 
speaking,  in  the  Ouartier  Latin  ;  indeed,  he  always  spoke  of 
Paris  with  enthusiasm.  His  manners  were  those  of  an  easy 
self-reliance  which  conveyed  the  impression  that  he  was  a 
man  who  minded  his  own  business,  but  that  it  would  not  be 
exactly  safe  to  cross  his  paths. 

"At  the  time  of  his  engagement  as  draughtsman  at  the 
office  not  the  slightest  doubt  was  entertained  of  his  skill  and 
ability  to  fill  his  post,  and  it  was  the  principal  concern  of 
Captain  Benham  to  get  him  sufficiently  interested  in  his 
work  to  engage  his  serious  attention.  It  was,  however,  soon 
apparent  that  he  considered  topographical  drawing  as  a 
tiresome  drudgery,  and  when  he  was  put  on  etching  views 
on  copper  plate,  this  occupation,  although  more  congenial  to 
his  tastes,  was  yet  too  monotonous  and  mechanical  and  did 
not  afford  sufficient  scope  to  his  peculiar  talent  for  sketching 
off-hand  figures  and  to  make  him  feel  contented.  Any  odd 
moment  he  could  snatch  from  his  work  he  was  busy  in 
throwing  off  his  impromptu  compositions  on  the  margins  of 
his  drawings  or  plate  ;  odd  characters,  such  as  monks,  knights, 
beggars,  seemed  to  be  his  favorites.  He  was  equally  skilful 
with  pen  and  ink,  pencil,  brush  and  sepia  after  the  Spanish 
style,  or  dry  point  in  the  English,  and  often  I  was  struck  by 
the  facility  and  rapidity  with  which  he  evolved  his  inventions, 
there  never  was  the  shadow  of  a  dilemma  or  even  hesitancy. 

"  From  the  very  start  he  never  was  punctual  in  attendance, 
and  as  time  wore  on  he  would  absent  himself  for  days  and 
weeks  without  tendering  any  excuse.  As  far  as  I  remember, 
nobody,  except  Captain  Benham,  cared  to  speak  to  Whistler 
about  his  irregularity,  for  the  reason  that  it  was  certain  that 
no  thanks  would  be  earned  and  that  it  would  not  have  made 
the  slightest  difference  in  his  habits.  Howsoever  that  may 
have  been,  Colonel  Porterfield,  the  clerk,  was  a  strict  ac- 
countant, and  his  monthly  reports  told  the  whole  story. 

39 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


Thus  in  one  month  two  days  were  deducted  from  Whistler's 
pay  for  time  lost  in  coming  late  to  office,  and  in  January, 
1855,  he  was  credited  with  but  six  and  one-half  days'  work, 
which  reduced  his  scant  pay  to  a  mere  pittance. 

' '  Under  these  circumstances  three  months  were  quite  suf- 
ficient length  of  time  for  Whistler  and  the  office  to  realize 
that  the  employment  of  Whistler  as  a  draughtsman  was  an 
experiment  destined  to  be  a  failure,  and  I  do  not  think  that 
a  trace  of  ill  feeling  was  retained  when  it  was  concluded  by 
both  parties  to  effect  a  separation  and  let  each  one  go  his 
own  way." 

At  that  time  Edward  de  Stoeckl  was  charge 
d'affaires  of  the  Russian  embassy.  He  had  known 
Major  Whistler  in  St.  Petersburg,  and  he  took  a 
great  fancy  to  his  son. 

One  day  Whistler  invited  him  to  dinner,  and  this 
is  the  account  of  what  happened  : 

"Whistler  engaged  a  carriage  and  called  for  his  distin- 
guished friend.  As  they  drove  on,  Whistler  turned  to  the 
diplomat  and  asked  him  if  he  would  object  to  their  stopping 
at  several  places  on  the  way.  M.  de  Stoeckl,  amused  at  the 
unconventionality  of  the  request,  assented,  and  his  young 
host  then  directed  the  coachman  to  a  greengrocer's,  a  con- 
fectioner's, a  tobacconist's,  and  to  several  other  tradesmen. 

' '  After  visiting  each  of  these  he  would  reappear  with  his 
arms  filled  with  packages,  which  he  deposited  on  the  vacant 
seat  of  the  carriage.  At  last  the  two  brought  up  at  Whistler' s 
lodgings.  After  a  climb  up  many  stairs  the  representative 
of  the  Czar  of  all  the  Russias  found  himself  in  Whistler's 
attic. 

"Quite  out  of  breath,  he  was  obliged  to  sit  down,  too 
exhausted  to  speak,  during  which  time  Whistler  flitted  hither 
and  thither,  snipping  a  lettuce  into  shape  for  the  salad,  dry- 
ing the  oysters,  browning  the  biscuit,  preparing  the  cheese, 

40 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


and  in  an  incredibly  short  time  setting  a  sumptuous  repast 
before  his  astonished  guest,  who  was  delighted  with  the 
unique  hospitality  of  the  host." 

A  comrade  in  office  describes  Whistler's  appear- 
ance in  those  days  : 

"  He  was  very  handsome,  graceful,  dressed  in  good  taste, 
with  a  leaning  towards  the  style  of  the  artist  in  the  selection 
of  his  clothing.  His  hair  was  a  blue-black  and  worn  very 
long,  and  the  bushy  appearance  seemed  to  give  one  the 
impression  that  each  separate  hair  was  curled.  Always  at 
this  time  he  wore  a  large  slouch  hat  and  a  loose  coat,  gen- 
erally unbuttoned,  and  thrown  back  so  that  the  waistcoat  was 
plainly  seen." 

He  never  changed  very  much  from  that  descrip- 
tion, save  that  his  hair  became  slightly  gray,  and 
one  lock  directly  over  the  forehead  turned  com- 
pletely white  very  prematurely.  To  this  white  lock 
Whistler  took  a  great  fancy,  and  it  is  visible  in  the 
portraits  and  drawings  he  made  of  himself.  His 
hair  was  naturally  very  curly, — an  inheritance  from 
his  father, — and  out  of  the  mass  of  black  curls  the 
white  lock  would  spring  with  almost  uncanny  effect. 

To  the  very  end  he  was  extremely  fastidious  in 
his  dress.  In  the  days  when  threadbare  coats  were 
a  luxury  he  wore  them  spotlessly  clean,  and  carried 
old  and  worn  garments  in  such  a  manner  that  they 
appeared  as  if  made  for  the  occasion. 

In  his  studio  and  while  at  work  he  was  never 
mussy  or  untidy ;  he  had  more  than  a  woman's 
notion  of  neatness. 

4i 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


He  was  not  only  very  careful  of  his  clothes,  but 
they  must  be  buttoned  and  adjusted  just  so  before 
he  would  make  his  appearance.  On  him  a  frock 
coat  was  never  stiff  and  ungraceful,  and  somehow 
he  managed  to  dissipate  the  dreary  formality  of 
evening  dress.  It  was  always  a  pleasure  to  see  him 
enter  a  room  ;  while  on  the  street  he  was,  in  his 
earlier  London  days,  exceedingly  picturesque. 

He  was  very  particular  concerning  his  hats.  In 
the  latter  Paris  days  he  always  wore  a  most  care- 
fully-brushed silk  hat  with  flat  brim, — the  Quartier- 
Latin  type.  This,  with  his  monocle — for  on  the  street 
he  wore  a  monocle — and  his  long  overcoat,  made 
him  an  exceedingly  striking  figure. 

One  day  he  was  in  a  shop,  trying  on  a  hat,  when 
a  dissatisfied  customer  rushed  in,  and,  mistaking  him 
for  some  one  in  charge,  said  : 

"I  say,  this  'at  doesn't  fit." 

Eyeing  him  critically  a  moment,  Whistler  said  : 

"  Neither  does  your  coat." 

Whistler  was  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  military 
spirit ;  and  if  he  had  not  been  a  great  artist  he  would 
have  made  a  good  officer.  He  was  born  to  com- 
mand, and  possessed  physical  courage  of  a  high  order. 

In  stature  and  physique  he  was  short  and  very 
slight, — could  not  have  weighed  more  than  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty  pounds  ;  but  he  was  so  perfectly 
proportioned  that  one  did  not  notice  his  size  except 
when  in  sharp  contrast  with  others.  Notwithstand- 
ing his  inferiority  in  size  and  strength,  he  never  in 

42 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


his  life  had  the  slightest  hesitation  in  striking  a  man 
— even  at  the  risk  of  annihilation — if  he  deemed  the 
occasion  required  it. 

A  good  many  years  ago  the  editor  of  a  gossipy 
sheet  in  London,  called  the  Hawk,  printed  some 
items  of  a  personal  nature  which  Whistler  resented. 
Not  knowing  the  editor  by  sight,  Whistler  took  a 
friend  to  point  him  out  in  the  foyer  of  one  of  the 
London  theatres.  Although  the  man  was  a  giant 
compared  with  Whistler,  the  latter,  without  a 
moment's  hesitation,  went  up  to  him  and  struck 
him  across  the  face  with  a  cane,  saying  with  each 
blow,  "  Hawk,  Hawk,  Hawk." 

The  editor  afterwards  boasted  that  he  imme- 
diately knocked  Whistler  down.  Whistler  claimed 
he  slipped  and  fell ;  but,  he  said  : 

' '  What  difference  does  it  make  whether  he  knocked  me 
down  or  whether  I  slipped  ?  The  fact  is  he  was  publicly 
caned,  and  what  happened  afterwards  could  not  offset  the 
publicity  and  nature  of  this  chastisement.  A  gentleman 
lightly  strikes  another  in  the  face  with  a  glove  ;  the  bully 
thinks  the  insult  is  wiped  out  if  he  knocks  some  one  down — 
the  ethics  of  the  prize  ring  ;  but  according  to  the  older 
notions  the  gentleman  knows  that  the  soft  touch  of  the  glove 
cannot  be  effaced  by  a  blow  of  the  fist, — for  if  it  could,  supe- 
riority in  weight  would  render  the  cad  and  the  bully  immune. 
The  historical  fact  is  that  I  publicly  drew  my  cane  across  his 
face  ;  no  one  cares  anything  about  his  subsequent  ragings,  or 
whether  I  slipped  and  fell,  or  whether  he  trampled  upon  me. ' ' 

Again,  when  an  artist  went  up  to  him  in  the 
Hogarth  Club  in  London  and  called  him  a  liar  and 
a  coward,  Whistler  promptly  slapped  his  face. 

43 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


So  far  as  controversies  with  opponents  were  con- 
cerned, he  was  courageous  to  the  point  of  indiffer- 
ence ;  but,  as  already  noted,  in  crossing  busy  streets 
and  making  his  way  through  the  hurly-burly  of  city 
life  he  was  as  careful,  not  to  say  timid,  as  a  woman  ;  he 
had  many  superstitions  which  influenced  his  actions. 

One  afternoon  he  said  to  a  sitter  : 

"  To-morrow,  you  know,  we  won't  work." 

"Why  not?" 

"  Well,  you  see,  it's  Friday  ;  and  last  Friday,  you 
remember,  what  a  bad  time  we  had, — accomplished 
nothing.  An  unlucky  day  anyway.  We'll  take  a 
holiday  to-morrow." 

The  military  spirit  clung  to  him  through  life,  and 
he  was  ever  in  the  habit  of  referring  to  his  experi- 
ence at  West  Point  as  if  it  were  the  one  entirely 
satisfactory  episode  in  his  career.  He  called  him- 
self a  "West- Pointer,"  and  insisted  that  the  Academy 
was  the  one  institution  in  the  country  the  superiority 
of  which  to  everything  of  its  kind  in  the  world  was 
universally  admitted. 

"  Why,  you  know,  West  Point  is  America." 

Though  living  in  Paris  at  the  time  and  the  sym- 
pathy of  all  France  was  with  Spain,  he  lost  no  op- 
portunity for  upholding  the  United  States  in  the  war. 
He  could  see  no  flaw  in  the  attitude  or  the  diplomacy 
of  this  country,  and  was  especially  eloquent  over  the 
treatment  of  Admiral  Cervera  after  his  defeat. 

On  the  other  hand,  such  was  his  ingrained  dislike 
for  England  that  he  lost  no  opportunity  for  declaiming 

44 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


against  her  war  in  South  Africa.  He  delighted  in 
berating  the  English  and  in  prodding  any  English 
sympathizer  who  happened  in  his  way. 

One  day  a  friend  from  this  side,  of  Irish  birth,  but 
who  sided  with  England,  was  in  his  studio,  and  the 
discussion  waxed  warm  until  the  visitor  said  : 

"I'll  be  dashed  if  I'll  talk  with  you,  Whistler. 
What  do  you  know  about  the  matter?  Nothing  at  all." 

After  a  short  silence,  Whistler  said  : 

"  But,  I  say,  C  ,  do  you  remember  how  the 

Boers  whipped  the  Dublin  Fusileers?" 

Whereupon  the  air  became  sulphurous. 

The  friend  afterwards  remarked  : 

"  There  was  nothing  in  the  malicious  innuendo 
anyway,  for,  you  know,  those  regiments  are  recruited 
from  all  quarters,  and  there  may  not  have  been  a  single 
Irishman  in  the  Fusileers  at  the  time  of  the  fight." 

Whistler  held  some  extraordinary  opinions  con- 
cerning the  Dreyfus  case,  the  outcome  of  his  strong 
military  bias. 

It  did  not  matter  to  him  whether  the  accused  was 
guilty  or  not,  the  prestige  of  the  army  must  be  main- 
tained, even  at  the  sacrifice  of  the  innocent, — the  view 
which  led  the  military  section  of  France  to  such 
violent  extremes  against  Dreyfus, — and  Whistler  re- 
sented the  assaults  upon  the  army  as  treachery  to 
the  most  sacred  institution  of  the  state. 

To  the  civilian  this  military  bias  which  leads  men 
in  all  countries  to  such  extremes  in  judgments  and 
actions  is  incomprehensible.    The  attitude  of  the 

45 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


military  mind  towards  the  ordinary  problems  of 
life,  towards  the  faults  and  failings  of  men,  towards 
petty  transgressions  and  disobediences,  towards  rank, 
routine,  and  discipline,  towards  the  courtesies  and 
sympathies  and  affections  which  are  the  leavening 
influences  of  life,  cannot  be  understood  by  the  lay 
mind.  The  soldier's  training  and  occupation  are 
such  that  he  does  not  think,  feel,  and  act  as  an  ordi- 
nary man  ;  his  standards,  convictions,  and  ethics  are 
fundamentally  different ;  so  different  that  he  requires 
his  own  territory,  his  own  laws,  and  his  own  tri- 
bunals. With  the  soldier  the  maxim  of  ordinary 
justice  that  it  is  better  that  ten  guilty  should  go  free 
than  one  innocent  be  condemned  is  reversed. 

By  birth,  by  tradition,  by  association,  Whistler 
was  thoroughly  saturated  with  this  spirit ;  and  it 
affected  his  conduct  and  his  attitude  towards  people 
throughout  his  life.  It  accounts  for  much  of  the  im- 
patience, the  arrogance,  the  intolerance,  the  combat- 
iveness,  the  indifference  to  the  feelings  of  others  with 
which  he  is  charged,  or  rather  overcharged,  for  much 
of  what  is  said  is  exaggeration. 

No  man  can  be  reared  in  an  atmosphere  of  au- 
thority and  blind  obedience  to  authority  without 
losing  something  of  that  give-and-take  spirit  which 
softens  life's  asperities. 

Therefore,  in  any  estimate  of  Whistler's  character 
and  of  his  conduct  towards  others,  the  influence  of 
these  very  unusual  early  associations  and  conditions 
must  be  taken  into  account  and  due  allowance  made. 

46 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


III 

An  American — The  Puritan  Element — Attitude  of 
England  and  France — Racial  and  Universal 
Qualities  in  Art — Art- Loving  Nations. 

Of  Whistler's  innate  and  aggressive  Americanism 
this  is  the  place  to  speak. 

English  in  origin,  the  family  became  Irish  and 
then  American.  In  blood  he  was  doubly  removed 
from  England,  first  by  Irish  progenitors,  then  by 
American,  and  in  his  entire  make-up,  physical  and 
intellectual,  he  was  so  absolutely  un-English  that  to 
the  day  of  his  death  he  was  an  object  of  curious 
observation  and  wondering  comment  wherever  he 
went,  in  even  so  cosmopolitan  a  city  as  London. 

There  was  nothing  he  loved  better  than  to  sur- 
prise, mystify,  confuse,  and  confound  the  stolid 
Briton.  And  though  he  lived  most  of  his  life  in 
Chelsea  and  came  back  there  to  spend  his  last  days, 
he  was  from  the  very  beginning  and  remained  until 
the  end  a  stranger  in  a  strange  land,  a  solitary  soul 
in  the  midst  of  an  uncongenial,  unsympathetic,  un- 
appreciative,  unloving  people. 

So  little  does  England  care  for  him  or  his  art,  or, 
more  truly,  so  prejudiced  is  the  nation  against  him 
as  an  impertinent  interloper,  who  for  more  than  a 

47 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


generation  disturbed  the  serenity  of  her  art  house- 
hold, that  the  National  Museum  has  no  example  of 
his  work.  Needless  to  say,  if  he  had  been  English, 
or  had  come  from  the  remotest  of  England's  out- 
lying possessions,  English  paperdom  and  English 
officialdom  would  have  claimed  him  as  their  own, 
condoned  his  eccentricities,  and  bought  his  works 
with  liberal  hand. 

During  the  days  of  his  greatest  poverty  and  dis- 
tress, when  even  France  turned  stupidly  aside  from 
things  she  soon  came  to  worship,  and  England  was 
jeering  clumsily,  and  all  nations  repudiated  him, — 
our  own  the  loudest  of  all, — he  really  seemed  to  be 
"a  man  without  a  country,"  and,  beyond  question, 
the  injustice,  the  bitterness  of  it  all  entered  deep 
into  his  soul  and  remained.  But  whatever  the  folly, 
the  blindness,  the  stupidity  of  a  country,  though  it 
seek  to  cast  off  a  child  so  brilliant  he  is  not  under- 
stood, the  ties  remain  ;  however  strained,  they  can- 
not be  broken.  Nothing  that  America  can  do  suf- 
fices to  make  an  Englishman  or  a  Frenchman  or  a 
German  out  of  an  American, — the  man  himself  may 
take  on  a  foreign  veneer,  but  beneath  the  surface  he 
belongs  where  blood  and  birth  have  placed  him. 

He  was  infinitely  more  of  an  American  than  thou- 
sands who  live  at  home  and  ape  the  manners  of 
Europe.  He  came  from  a  line  of  ancestors  so  dis- 
tinctively and  aggressively  American  that  he  could 
not  have  turned  out  otherwise  had  he  tried. 

48 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


He  was  not  even  an  Anglo-American  or  a  Franco- 
American,  but  of  all  the  types  and  races  which  go 
to  make  the  American  people  he  was  in  blood,  ap- 
pearance, alertness,  combativeness,  wit,  and  a  thou- 
sand and  one  traits,  an  exceedingly  refined  illustra- 
tion of  the  Irish- American  ;  and  because  of  his  Irish 
blood,  with  perhaps  some  Scotch  on  his  mother's 
side,  he  was  never  in  sympathy  with  anything  Eng- 
lish, but  was  now  and  then  somewhat  in  sympathy 
with  many  things  French,  though  the  points  of 
sympathetic  contact  were  so  slight  and  superficial 
that  he  could  not  live  contentedly  for  any  length  of 
time  in  Paris.  In  his  art,  his  convictions,  and  his 
conventions  he  was  altogether  too  profound,  too 
serious,  too  earnest — one  might  with  truth  say,  too 
puritanical — to  find  the  atmosphere  of  Paris  alto- 
gether congenial.  His  great  portraits  might  have 
come  from  the  studio  of  a  Covenanter,  but  never 
from  a  typical  Paris  atelier. 

The  Puritan  element  which  is  to  be  found  in  every 
American  achievement,  whether  in  war,  in  art,  or  in 
literature,  though  often  deeply  hidden,  is  conspicu- 
ous in  Whistler's  work,  though  he  himself  would 
probably  have  been  the  first  to  deny  it ;  and  it  is 
this  element  of  sobriety,  of  steadfastness,  of  unde- 
viating  adherence  to  convictions  and  ideals  that 
constitutes  the  firm  foundation  of  his  art,  of  his 
many  brilliant  and  beautiful  superstructures  of 
fancy. 

Only  a  Puritan  at  heart  could  have  painted  the 
4  49 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


"Carlyle,"  "His  Mother,"  and  that  wonderful  child 
portrait,  "  Miss  Alexander." 

Only  a  Puritan  at  heart  could  have  painted  the 
mystery  of  night  with  all  his  tender,  loving,  religious 
sympathy. 

Only  a  Puritan  at  heart  could  have  exhibited  as 
he  did  in  everything  he  touched  those  infinitely  pre- 
cious qualities  of  reserve,  of  delicacy,  of  refinement, 
which  are  the  conspicuous  characteristics  of  his  work. 

Concerning  his  refinement  some  one  has  very  truly 
remarked  : 

"  He  so  hated  everything  ugly  or  unclean  that,  even  in  the 
club  smoking-rooms  (where  one  may  sometimes  hear  rather 
Rabelaisian  tales),  he  never  told  a  story  which  could  not  have 
been  repeated  in  the  presence  of  modest  women.  His  per- 
sonal daintiness  was  extreme.  Threadbare  coats  on  him 
were  never  shabby.  He  had  to  wear  too  many  threadbare 
garments,  poor  fellow  !  for,  inasmuch  as  he  put  the  integrity 
of  his  art  before  everything  else,  he  never  stooped  to  make 
those  '  pretty'  things  which  would  have  brought  him  a  for- 
tune, without  doubt.  He  was  abstemious  in  his  living, 
simple  in  all  that  he  did, — his  exquisite,  sure  taste  preventing 
him  from  extremes,  gaudiness,  or  untidiness. ' ' 

And  when  he  lent  his  support,  some  eight  years 
ago,  to  the  school  kept  by  Carmen  Rossi,  who  as  a 
child  had  been  one  of  his  models,  he  would  not  tol- 
erate the  study  of  the  nude  by  mixed  classes,  and, 
in  fact,  introduced  many  rules  and  restrictions  which 
were  considered  by  even  American  pupils  as  "puri- 
tanical" in  the  extreme,  and  which  the  French  could 
not  understand  at  all. 

50 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 

He  never  painted  any  large  and  aggressive  nudes, 
such  as  abound  in  French  art,  such  as,  in  a  way,  may 
be  said  to  characterize  French  art  and  mark  its  atti- 
tude towards  life  ;  but  he  made  many  drawings  in 
water-color  and  pastel,  and  painted  some  oils,  all, 
however,  exquisitely  refined,  the  element  of  the 
nude  being  in  every  instance  subordinated  to  the 
artistic  scheme  and  intention.  Many  of  these  draw- 
ings have  never  been  exhibited.  When  seen  they 
will  go  far  towards  demonstrating  the  puritanical 
element  in  Whistler. 

In  his  intolerance  towards  the  methods,  convic- 
tions, and  ideals  of  others  he  exhibited  some  of  the 
spirit  of  the  Puritan  zealot  who  knows  no  creed  but 
his  own. 

Concerning  his  Americanism,  one  who  knew  him 
says  : 1 

"Upon  the  known  facts  of  Whistler's  career  I  do  not 
touch.  I  wish  only  to  underline  his  Americanism,  and 
to  offer  you  one  or  two  personal  memories.  He  was  *  an 
American  of  the  Americans,'  say  the  American  papers,  and 
who  shall  venture  to  dispute  their  dictum  ?  Not  I,  certainly. 
Nor  would  anybody  who  knew  Whistler  personally.  I  knew 
him  for  many  years  in  London  and  in  Paris.  I  have  many 
letters  from  him  on  art  and  other  matters,  some  of  which 
ought  to  be  printed,  for  his  letters  to  friends  were  not  less 
works  of  art  than  those  which  he  composed  more  carefully 
for  print.  I  have  books  and  drawings  which  he  gave  me. 
I  mention  these  things  as  evidence  that  I  may  fairly  say 
something  about  him,  at  least  on  the  personal  side.    And  I 


1  G.  W.  Smalley,  in  the  London  Times. 
5i 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


knew  on  what  terms  he  lived  with  the  so-called  art  world  in 
England,  and  what  his  own  view  of  the  matter  was." 

And  an  English  writer  said,  some  ten  years  ago  :* 

"  It  should  not  be  forgotten  in  America  that  Mr.  Whistler 
is  an  American  of  Americans.  It  may  therefore  be  appro- 
priately asked,  What  has  America  done  for  him  ?  It  has 
treated  him  with — if  possible — even  more  ignorance  than 
England  ;  this,  of  course,  coming  from  the  desire  of  the 
Anglomaniac  to  out-English  the  English." 

And  there  are  others  whose  testimony  will  be 
forthcoming  some  day  to  show  how  wholly  and 
absolutely  American  he  was  to  the  very  core  and 
centre  of  his  being,  and  in  his  attitude  towards  all 
countries  and  peoples  of  Europe. 

It  is  true  he  said  many  harsh,  bitter,  and  cutting 
things  concerning  the  press  and  people  of  this  coun- 
try, that  he  frequently  exhibited  in  the  English  sec- 
tions of  art  exhibitions  in  preference  to  those  of  his 
own  country ;  but  for  all  these  things  there  were 
many  good  reasons,  and  we  have  but  ourselves  to 
blame. 

He  was  so  much  of  an  American  that  a  single 
word  of  ridicule  from  this  side  cut  deeper  than 
pages  of  abuse  from  the  other.  To  the  scoffings  of 
England  he  turned  a  careless  ear,  and  replied  with 
flippant,  but  pointed,  tongue  ;  while  the  utter  lack 
of  support  and  appreciation  from  his  own  country 
was  ever  referred  to  with  a  bitterness  that  betrayed 


1  The  Nation,  vol.  liv.,  pp.  280-281,  April  14,  1892. 
52 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


his  real  feelings.  He  could  not  understand  how  the 
American  people  could  desert  a  countryman  bat- 
tling alone  against  all  England.  As  he  frequently 
said  : 

"  It  did  not  matter  whether  I  was  in  the  right  or 
in  the  wrong, — I  was  one  against  the  mob.  Why  did 
America  take  the  side  of  the  mob, — and — and  get 
whipped  ?" 

America  was  blind  to  his  merits  until  long  after 
he  achieved  fame  in  every  country  of  Europe  ;  and 
it  is  undeniably  true  that  the  press  here  truculently 
echoed  the  slurs  of  the  critics  on  the  other  side 
throughout  that  long  period  of  controversy.  It  is  a 
lamentable  fact  that  up  to  the  day  of  his  death  he 
was  misunderstood,  or  accepted  as  an  eccentric  in 
many  quarters  of  the  land  that  now  claims  him  as 
her  bright  particular  star  in  the  firmament  of  art. 
Notwithstanding  all  these  things,  he  remained  so 
conspicuously  an  American  that  every  Englishman 
and  every  Frenchman  with  whom  he  came  in  con- 
tact recognized  him  as  a  foreigner  ;  neither  would 
have  thought  of  mistaking  him  for  a  fellow-country- 
man ;  he  was  as  un-English  and  un-French  as  an 
Italian,  or  a  Spaniard,  or — better — as  an  American. 

The  "  White  Girl"  was  rejected  at  the  Salon  in 
1863  >  tne  "Portrait  of  my  Mother"  was  accepted 
by  the  Royal  Academy  and  obscurely  hung  in  1871, 
only  after  a  bitter  discussion,  in  which  the  one  mem- 
ber of  the  committee  who  favored  it,  Sir  William 

53 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


Boxall,  a  friend  of  Whistler's  family,  threatened  to 
resign  unless  it  was  accepted. 

This  same  great  portrait — it  is  said  on  good  au- 
thority— was  offered  in  New  York  for  twelve  hundred 
dollars  and  found  no  buyer. 

When  exhibited  in  London,  language  failed  to 
express  the  full  measure  of  the  scorn  and  contempt 
the  English  press — from  the  ponderous  Times  down 
to  the  most  insignificant  fly-sheet — had  for  this  won- 
derful picture  ;  but  no  sooner  had  the  French  gov- 
ernment purchased  it  for  the  Luxembourg  than  all 
was  changed,  and  with  delightful  effrontery  the 
Illustrated  London  News  said  : 

"  Modern  British  (!)  art  will  now  be  represented 
in  the  National  Gallery  of  the  Luxembourg  by 
one  of  the  finest  paintings  due  to  the  brush  of  an 
English  (!)  artist, — namely,  Mr.  Whistler's  portrait 
of  his  mother." 

The  italics  and  exclamation  marks  are  Whistler's 
own,  and  his  denial  of  British  complicity  is  complete. 

Aside  from  Whistler's  personality,  his  art  finds  its 
only  congenial  place  in  the  midst  of  American  art. 

That  his  pictures  will  not  hang  in  any  conceivable 
exhibition  of  British  art  without  the  incongruity 
being  painfully  perceptible  goes  without  saying,  and 
none  knows  this  better  than  English  painters  them- 
selves. 

Of  all  the  various  manifestations  of  art  with  which 
Whistler's  has  come  in  sharp  contrast,  English  paint- 
ing has  been  the  slowest  and  most  stubborn  in  yield- 

54 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 

ing  to  influences  from  the  far  East ;  whereas  of  all 
painters  of  the  nineteenth  century  Whistler  was  the 
very  first  to  recognize  the  wondrous  qualities  of 
Chinese  and  Japanese  art  and  absorb  what  those 
countries  had  to  teach  concerning  line  and  color ; 
and  in  so  far  as  the  painters  of  England,  and  more 
conspicuously  those  of  Scotland,  have  learned  aught 
of  the  subtleties  and  refinements  of  the  East,  they 
have  learned  it  through  Whistler,  and  not  direct. 

In  other  words,  Whistler  has  been  absolutely  im- 
mune to  English  influences  ;  there  is  not  the  faintest 
trace  in  any  of  his  works,  etchings,  lithographs,  or 
paintings.  In  temperament,  mood,  fancy,  and  im- 
agination, in  what  he  saw  and  the  manner  that  he 
painted  it,  he  was  as  far  removed  from  any  "  English 
School"  as  Hokusai  himself. 

On  the  other  hand,  England  for  some  time  has  not 
been  immune  to  his  influence,  and  things  after — a 
long  way  after — Whistler  appear  at  every  exhibition. 
What  is  known  as  the  "  Glasgow  School" — that  body 
of  able  and  progressive  painters — long  ago  frankly 
accepted  him  as  master. 

Of  English  painters  dead  and  living  he  had  a 
poor — possibly  too  poor — opinion.  He  frequently 
said,  "  England  never  produced  but  one  painter, 
and  that  was  Hogarth."  In  mellower  moments  he 
would  say  not  unkind  things  of  certain  qualities  in 
other  men  ;  towards  the  living  painters  who  appre- 
ciated his  art  he  was  oftentimes  generous  in  the  be- 
stowal of  praise.  But  it  was  impossible  for  Whistler 
to  say  a  thing  was  good  if  he  did  not  think  so  ;  and 

55 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


he  would  exercise  all  his  ingenuity  to  get  out  of 
expressing  an  opinion  when  he  knew  his  real  opinion 
would  hurt  the  feelings  of  a  friend.  Towards  stran- 
gers and  enemies  he  was  often  almost  brutal  in 
condemning  what  was  bad, — as  when  a  rich  man  took 
him  over  his  new  house,  dwelling  with  pride  and 
enthusiasm  on  this  extraordinary  feature  and  that, 
at  each  of  which  Whistler  would  exclaim,  "  Amazing, 
amazing !"  until  at  the  end  of  their  tour  of  the 
rooms  and  halls,  he  at  last  said,  "  Amazing, — and 
there's  no  excuse  for  it !" 

Of  his  attitude  towards  others  a  friendly  writer 
said  : 1 

"  He  was  not  a  devotee  of  Turner,  but  he  yielded  to  no 
man  in  appreciation  of  certain  of  the  works  of  that  painter. 
He  was  not  lavish  of  praise  where  his  contemporaries  were 
concerned.  Though  he  could  say  pleasant  things  about 
them  in  a  rather  vague  way, — calling  some  young  painter  '  a 
good  fellow,'  and  so  on, — words  of  explicit  admiration  he 
did  not  promiscuously  bestow.  The  truth  is,  there  was  an 
immense  amount  of  stuff  which  he  saw  in  the  exhibitions 
which  he  frankly  detested.  Yet  conversation  with  him  did 
not  leave  the  impression  that  he  was  a  man  grudging  of 
praise.  It  was  rather  that  a  picture  had  to  be  exceptionally 
good  to  excite  his  emotions.  One  point  is  significant.  It 
was  not  the  flashy  and  popular  painter  that  he  invited  to 
share  in  the  gatherings  for  which  his  Paris  studio  was  noted  : 
it  was  the  painter  like  Puvis  de  Chavannes,  the  man  who  had 
greatness  in  him." 


1  New  York  Tribune,  July  26,  1903. 
56 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


That  he  had  nothing  in  common  with  English  art, 
the  English  were  quick  to  assert,  until  his  fame  made 
him  a  desirable  acquisition,  when  on  this  side,  and 
that  within  the  last  few  years,  a  disposition  to  claim 
him — veiy  much  as  the  business-like  empire  seizes 
desirable  territory  here  and  there  about  the  globe — 
has  begun  to  show  itself ;  and,  unless  America  is  alert, 
Whistler  will  yet  appear  in  the  National  Gallery  as 
— to  quote  again  the  words  of  the  Illustrated  News 
— "An  English  artist" 

As  regards  the  French,  they  are  disposed  to  claim 
Whistler  on  three  grounds  : 

First.  That  he  was  a  student  there, — with  a  mas- 
ter who  taught  him  nothing. 

Second.  That  France  acknowledged  his  genius 
by  the  purchase  of  the  portrait  of  his  mother, — 
twenty  years  after  it  was  painted,  and  seven  after  it 
was  exhibited  in  Paris. 

Third.  That  he  lived  for  a  time  in  Paris. 

Three  reasons  which  would  annex  to  France  about 
every  American  artist  of  note,  for  most  of  them  (i) 
studied  in  France,  (2)  are  represented  in  the  Luxem- 
bourg, and  (3)  have  lived  in  Paris  much  longer  than 
Whistler. 

As  for  those  first  few  years  in  Paris,  even  the 
French  concede  that  Gleyre  was  entirely  without 
influence  upon  Whistler's  subsequent  career. 

As  regards  the  recognition  of  his  genius,  France 
was  exceedingly  slow.    The  portrait  of  his  mother 

57 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


was  exhibited  in  London  in  1871,  and  purchased 
for  the  Luxembourg  in  189 1,  though  it  had  been 
awarded  a  medal  at  the  Salon  some  seven  years 
before. 

France  no  more  taught  Whistler  to  paint  than  it 
taught  him  to  etch.  His  masters  were  older  and 
greater  than  the  art  of  France.  Before  he  was 
twenty-five  he  had  absorbed  all  and  rejected  most 
that  France  had  to  teach.  At  twenty-eight  he 
painted  a  picture  which,  scorned  by  the  Salon, 
startled  all  who  visited  the  "Salon  des  Refuses," 
and  then — still  under  thirty — he  shook  the  dust  of 
France  from  his  feet,  obliterated  every  vestige  of 
her  influence  from  his  art,  and  started  out  to  make 
his  way  alone  and  unaided  in  the  domain  of  the 
beautiful. 

In  1865  he  again  stirred  the  critics  with  that 
novel  creation  of  color  "The  Princess  of  the  Land 
of  Porcelain."  Nothing  of  the  kind  had  ever  been 
seen  in  either  French  or  any  other  art.  It  was  the 
application  of  Western  methods  to  Eastern  motives  ; 
it  was  plainly  a  study  primarily  in  color,  secondarily 
in  line,  not  at  all  in  character.  It  was  the  first  great 
step  taken  by  the  Western  world  towards  abstract  art. 

"The  Princess  of  the  Land  of  Porcelain,"  the 
"Lange  Leizen,"  the  "Gold  Screen,"  the  "Bal- 
cony"— all  early  pictures — are  all  one  and  the  same 
in  motive  ;  they  are  his  first  attempts  in  a  large  way 
to  produce  color  harmonies,  to  subordinate  every- 
thing to  the  color  composition. 

58 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


Of  Whistler  and  American  art  in  those  days  an 
unnamed  correspondent  has  written  from  Paris  : 1 

"  It  would  puzzle  the  analysis  of  a  competent  critic  to  find 
what  Whistler  owed  to  Gleyre  ;  and  the  young  American 
openly  professed  to  have  profited  by  the  counter  example  of 
Gustave  Courbet,  who  was  the  realist  of  that  day.  From 
the  first  triumph  of  Courbet  in  1849,  Gleyre  had  shrunk  back 
into  his  shell  and  no  longer  exhibited  at  the  annual  salons. 

• '  From  the  start  Whistler  was  an  independent ;  and  when, 
after  six  years  of  work  in  the  studios,  he  offered  a  picture  for 
the  judgment  of  the  official  Salon,  the  jury  promptly  refused 
it.  Whistler  was  not  discouraged,  and  hung  the  painting  in 
the  outlaws'  Salon  des  Refuses.  It  created  a  stir  that  was 
almost  enthusiasm,  and  the  name  of  his  '  Fille  Blanche' — 
White  Maiden — was  still  remembered  when  four  years  later 
a  few  American  painters  demanded  a  section  for  their  work 
at  the  Universal  Exposition  of  1867.  I  have  looked  up  a 
criticism  of  the  time,  and  imagine  it  will  be  found  more  in- 
teresting now  than  when  it  was  written. 

"'The  United  States  of  America  are  surely  a  great 
country  and  the  North  Americans  a  great  people,  but  what 
little  artists  they  are  !  The  big  daubs  which  they  exhibit, 
under  pretence  of  "Blue  Mountains,"  "Niagara  Falls," 
"Genesee  Plain,"  or  "  Rain  in  the  Tropics,"  show  as  much 
childish  arrogance  as  boyish  ignorance.  People  say  that 
these  loud  placards  are  sold  for  crazy  prices  in  Philadelphia 
or  Boston.  I  am  willing  to  believe  it,  but  I  cannot  rejoice 
at  it. ' 

"This  is  laid  on  with  no  light  brush,  and  some  of  us  can 
recall  the  American  painters  of  that  remote  age  who  were  so 
mishandled.  But  the  remaining  paragraph  of  the  lines 
given  to  American  art  may  surprise  those  who  look  on 
Whistler  as  only  a  contemporary. 


1  New  York  Evening  Post,  August  1,  1903. 
59 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 

"  •  M.  Whistler  seems  to  me  the  only  American  artist 
really  worthy  of  attention  ;  he  is  our  old  acquaintance  of  the 
Salon  des  Refuses  of  1863,  where  his  "Fille  Blanche"  had  a 
suces  d ' engouement  (a  success  of  infatuation  !).  He  is  truly 
an  American,  as  understood  by  the  motto,  "  time  is  money." 
M.  Whistler  so  well  knows  the  value  of  time  that  he  scarcely 
stops  at  the  small  points  of  execution  ;  the  impression  seized 
as  it  flies  and  fixed  as  soon  as  possible  in  swift  strokes,  with 
a  galloping  brush — such  is  the  artist  and  such,  too,  is  the 
man.' 

"Velasquez  was  already  in  the  air,  but  Japanese  art,  to 
which  Whistler  afterwards  allowed  himself  to  be  thought  in- 
debted, was  not  yet  spoken  of.  Thus  the  young  American 
artist  was  the  precursor  of  movements  which  years  after- 
wards came  to  a  head,  and  which  for  the  most  part  he  has 
outlived.  In  view  of  this,  the  closing  verdict  of  the  official 
critic  of  1867  is  worth  noting,  the  more  so  as  it  shows  the 
reward  already  attributed  to  the  American's  industry  in 
another  branch  of  art.  '  While  waiting  for  M.  Whistler  to 
become  a  painter  in  the  sense  which  old  Europe  still  attaches 
to  the  word,  he  is  already  an  etcher  (aquafortiste),  all  fire 
and  color,  and  very  worthy  of  attention,  even  if  he  had  only 
this  claim  to  it. '  " 

Before  France  cared  very  much  for  Velasquez, 
before  it  so  much  as  knew  there  was  an  island  called 
Japan  on  the  art  map,  Whistler  was  playing  with 
the  blacks  and  grays  of  the  master  of  Madrid  and 
with  the  blues  and  silvery  whites  of  the  porcelains 
of  the  Orient. 

And  it  was  he, — Whistler, — the  American,  who 
turned  the  face  of  France  towards  the  East,  and 
made  her  see  things  in  line  and  color  her  most 
vagrant  fancy  had  never  before  conceived. 

Searching  the  shops  of  Amsterdam,  he  found  the 
60 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


blue-and-white  china  which  gave  him  inspiration  to 
do  those  things  beside  which  the  finest  art  of  France 
is  crude  and  barbaric. 

Not  very  long  ago  a  French  writer  said,  "There 
is  not,  as  yet,  an  American  school  of  painting,  but 
there  are  already  many  American  painters,  and  great 
ones,  who  will  in  time  form  a  school." 

Let  us  hope  not. 

A  friend — a  painter — once  called  Whistler's  atten- 
tion to  several  very  good  things  by  Alfred  Stevens. 
Whistler  looked  at  them  a  moment,  then  said, 
"School,  school,  school,"  and  turned  away. 

In  that,  or  any  other  restrictive  or  regulative  sense 
of  the  word,  let  us  hope  there  will  be  no  "American 
school ;"  but  so  long  as  there  are  American  paint- 
ers there  will  be  American  paintings  ;  and  the  greater 
the  work  the  more  completely  will  it  reflect  the  man, 
and  the  greater  the  man  the  more  surely  and  subtly 
will  it  reflect  his  nationality. 

The  phrase  "American  painters"  means  some- 
thing more  than  Americans  who  paint,  and  "  Ameri- 
can paintings"  implies  the  transmission  to  the  work 
of  something  of  the  painter's  individuality,  which  in- 
cludes as  an  important  element  his  racial  and  national 
characteristics. 

In  other  words,  American  painters,  regardless  of 
where  they  are  trained,  where  they  work,  and  what 
they  paint,  must  produce  American  paintings  ;  they 
cannot  wholly  eliminate  their  individuality  and  na- 
tionality ;  they  cannot  become  so  completely  French 

61 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


or  English  as  to  absolutely  obliterate  every  trace  of 
their  American  origin,  and  their  works,  though  Eng- 
lish, French,  or  Italian  to  the  last  degree,  will  still 
exhibit  traces  of  American  origin.  So  true  is  this, 
that  the  paintings  of  men  who  have  lived  longest 
abroad  and  tried  hardest  to  paint  after  the  manner 
of  others  find  their  most  congenial  surroundings 
amidst  American  art. 

So  long  as  we  have  American  paintings  we  shall 
have  an  American  "school"  in  the  sense  that  all 
American  paintings  taken  together,  whether  few  or 
many,  whether  good  or  bad,  will  be  distinguished 
and  distinguishable  from  the  paintings  of  every  other 
country.  In  that  sense  America  has,  and  always  has 
had,  a  "school"  of  painting,  though  for  a  long  time 
the  school  was  little  more  than  a  kindergarten. 

America  has  no  centre  like  Paris,  or  Rome,  or 
Florence,  where  a  large  body  of  men  and  women 
are  gathered  from  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe  to 
study  art.  In  that  sense  America  has  no  "school;" 
but  that  sort  of  a  "  school"  is  about  the  worst  thing 
that  can  happen  to  a  country.  These  great  centres 
for  the  diffusion  of  art  are  usually  fatal  to  the  devel- 
opment of  native  art  ;  the  presence  of  a  horde  of 
foreigners,  each  with  his  own  peculiarities  and  char- 
acteristics, some  with  the  effeminacy  of  the  South, 
others  with  the  brutal  force  and  overpowering  virilty 
of  the  North,  stifles  national  initiative  and  produces 
sterile  cosmopolites. 

Paris,  with  its  salons,  exhibitions,  competitions, 
62 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


medals,  prizes,  and  innumerable  incentives  towards 
commercial,  blatant,  and  vicious  art,  is  the  curse  of 
French  art,  and  pretty  soon  France  will  have  no  art 
that  is  really  hers. 

The  atmosphere  of  Paris  is  one  of  strenuous 
striving  after  effect,  of  mighty  endeavor  to  make  an 
impression  ;  it  encourages  facility,  dash,  bravura, 
eccentricities,  and  experiments  of  all  kinds.  From 
the  depths  of  our  hearts  let  us  be  thankful  that 
America  has  no  "school"  of  that  kind,  and  earn- 
estly hope  that  American  artists  residing  tempora- 
rily within  that  atmosphere  will  be  affected  as  little 
as  was  Whistler. 

Paris  is  an  aesthetic  Babel. 

The  art  of  Greece  was  suffocated  when  the  entire 
coast-line  of  the  Mediterranean  came  to  study  the 
Acropolis. 

Turning  to  the  entire  body  of  American  painters, 
at  home  and  abroad,  we  find  that  they  constitute  at 
the  present  day  the  one  "school"  that  has  already 
given  to  the  world  the  greatest  artist  since  the  days 
of  Rembrandt  and  Velasquez, — and  greater  than 
either  in  some  respects,  as  we  shall  see, — and  also 
the  greatest  of  living  portrait-painters,  not  to  men- 
tion a  half-dozen  more  who  are  recognized  inter- 
nationally as  masters  in  their  chosen  fields ;  the 
one  "school"  that  contains  more  of  sobriety,  more 
of  sanity,  more  of  youthful  vigor  and  virility,  more 
of  indomitable  energy  and  perseverance,  more  of 
promise  and  assurance  of  mighty  achievement  than 

63 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


all  the  schools  of  all  the  other  nations  taken  to- 
gether. 

If  the  world  is  destined  to  see  the  modern  equiv- 
alent of  ancient  Athens,  it  will  be  somewhere  within 
the  confines  of  North  America. 

The  countries  of  the  Old  World  have  had  their 
opportunities,  and  the  tide  of  progress  in  its  circuit 
of  the  globe  is  already  lapping  the  shores  of  the 
Western  continent. 

In  temperament  the  typical  American  lies  about 
midway  between  the  stolidity  of  the  Englishman 
and  the  volatility  of  the  Frenchman.  He  has  much 
of  the  dogged  perseverance  of  the  former,  with  a 
large  element  of  the  facility  and  versatility  of  the 
latter ;  he  is  steadfast  in  the  pursuit  of  his  ideals, 
and  at  the  same  time  quick  to  adopt  new  and  im- 
proved methods  for  attaining  his  ends  ;  he  has  an 
Englishman's  tenacity  of  conviction  and  much  of  a 
Frenchman's  brilliancy  of  expression.  As  compared 
with  an  Englishman  the  American  appears  more 
than  half  French  ;  as  compared  with  a  French- 
man he  seems  essentially  English.  It  is  this  com- 
bination of  earnest  convictions,  profound  belief  in 
self  and  country,  sobriety,  perseverance,  tenacity  of 
purpose,  stolid  endurance,  with  inventiveness,  origi- 
nality, irresistible  impulsiveness,  dash  and  brilliancy 
in  execution,  that  assures  to  the  future  of  North 
America  the  noblest  of  human  achievements. 

For  the  present  the  strength  and  resources  of  the 
country  are  absorbed  in  the  production  of  wealth ; 
but  soon  the  people  will  tire  of  this  pursuit,  and  the 

64 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


accumulated  wealth  of  nation,  States,  cities,  and  in- 
dividuals will  turn  to  the  encouragement  of  things 
beautiful  in  not  only  art  and  literature,  but  in  the 
long-neglected  handicrafts, — the  crafts  that  make 
instead  of  destroying  men. 

At  the  World's  Exposition  of  1893,  in  Chicago, 
Whistler's  paintings  hung,  where  they  rightfully  be- 
longed, in  the  American  section.  Though  far  and 
away  superior  to  anything  in  the  entire  section,  and 
conspicuous  above  everything  near  for  their  exquisite 
beauty,  still  it  cannot  be  gainsaid  that  of  all  the  sec- 
tions of  that  exhibition  the  American  was  the  only 
one  which  would  contain  Whistler's  work  without 
the  contrast  being  so  marked  as  to  be  absolutely 
destructive.  That  they  could  not  hang  with  entire 
fitness  among  the  English  pictures  even  the  English 
would  admit ;  that  their  sober  harmonies  were  dis- 
tinctively at  variance  with  the  brilliant  and  super- 
ficial qualities  of  the  French  pictures  was  apparent 
to  even  the  unpractised  eye.  "The  Yellow  Buskin" 
and  "The  Fur  Jacket,"  to  mention  no  others,  could 
hang  in  only  one  place,  and  that  was  where  they 
were  put, — in  the  main  hall  of  the  American  section, 
flanked  and  confronted  by  American  work. 

Not  that  the  pictures  about  them  equalled  in 
merit, — that  is  not  the  question  ;  but  they  were  suf- 
ficiently akin  to  constitute  an  harmonious  environ- 
ment. 


Art  is  simply  a  mode  of  expression,  and  the 
highest,  truest,  noblest  art  is  the  reflection  of  the 

5  65 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


best  there  is  in  a  people.  It  follows,  therefore,  that 
the  art  of  any  race  or  people  must  exhibit  the  racial 
characteristics.  A  painting,  for  instance,  belongs 
first  to  the  man  who  painted  it  and  bears  on  its 
face  so  many  marks  of  his  individuality  that  not 
only  he  but  others  recognize  it  as  his.  Secondly, 
the  painting  belongs  to  the  race  or  people  with 
which  the  artist  is  identified,  for  the  very  traits 
which  distinguish  him  as  an  American,  or  an  Eng- 
lishman, or  a  Frenchman  from  all  other  nationalities 
inevitably  make  themselves  felt  in  the  work,  and 
distinguish  it  not  only  specifically  from  all  other 
canvases,  but  generically  from  the  work  of  other 
peoples,  schools,  epochs,  eras,  etc. 

A  man  may  change  his  allegiance  and  live  in 
foreign  lands,  but  he  cannot  change  his  blood.  If  a 
Chinaman,  he  will  remain  a  Chinaman,  no  matter 
where  he  lives  ;  if  an  American,  he  will  remain  an 
American,  though,  like  many  of  our  mess-of-potage 
citizens,  he  may  remain  a  bastard  American  in  the 
endeavor  to  become  an  adopted  Englishman. 

The  finer  the  art  the  more  universal  its  qualities. 
And  yet  there  is  no  poem  and  no  picture  that  is 
absolutely  without  the  marks  of  its  master ;  and  the 
marks  of  the  master  mean  the  marks  of  his  race, — 
in  fact,  the  racial  indications  are  inversely  in  number 
to  those  of  the  individual ;  the  deeper  a  man  buries 
his  personality  in  his  work  the  stronger  the  indica- 
tions of  his  race.  Shakespeare  so  lost  himself  that 
his  personal  characteristics  nowhere  appear  in  his 

66 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


great  plays,  and  a  conception  of  the  poet's  person- 
ality could  not  be  formed  from  a  reading  of  the 
lines — so  universal  was  his  genius  ;  yet  his  poetry  is 
essentially  and  everlastingly  English, — far  more  con- 
spicuously English  than  the  poetry  of  lesser  men 
who  sing  about  England  and  things  English.  It  is 
more  English  than  Chaucer,  more  English  than 
Spencer,  more  English  than  Browning,  Tennyson, 
or  Swinburne  ;  it  breathes  more  fully  and  more  truly 
the  spirit  of  the  English  people  in  their  greatest 
days  than  any  poetry  ever  uttered  by  the  English 
tongue. 

The  greater  the  man,  the  more  completely  does 
he  express  his  people.  It  takes  a  great  race  to  pro- 
duce a  great  man  ;  and  once  produced,  he  is  ever- 
lastingly linked  with  his  tribe. 

But  greatness  implies  the  suppression  of  the  petty, 
including  all  petty  resemblances  ;  therefore,  a  man  by 
the  universal  ' qualities  of  his  genius  may  seem  to 
belong  to  the  world,  whereas  in  truth  he  is  but 
the  expression  of  the  best  there  is  in  his  country- 
men. 

Rembrandt  suppressed  all  provincialisms  and 
seemed  to  etch  and  paint  for  mankind  rather  than 
for  a  limited  public  in  Holland  ;  and  yet  to  the  last 
he  was  simply  the  greatest  of  Dutch  artists.  And 
because  he  was  so  essentially  and  truly  Dutch  he  is 
one  of  the  world's  great  artists  ;  in  the  chorus  of 
the  world's  proud  voices  there  is  no  mistaking  his 
accent. 

67 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 

Velasquez  is  at  the  same  time  the  least  Spanish  of 
painters  and  the  most  Spanish  of  artists.  Suppress- 
ing all  eccentricities  of  time  and  place,  he  rose  to 
universal  heights,  and  the  world  claims  him  as  its 
own  ;  and  yet  his  fame  depends  upon  the  fact  that 
he  was  from  first  to  last  a  Spaniard, — a  Spaniard  in 
precisely  the  sense  that  Cervantes  was  the  expres- 
sion of  inarticulate  forces  behind  him.  Deriving 
more  or  less  help  from  his  contemporaries,  and  from 
this  quarter  and  that,  from  the  visit  of  Rubens  and 
from  his  own  journey  to  Italy,  he,  after  all,  was  the 
achievement  of  the  Spanish  people  in  painting.  He 
was  not  an  Italian,  he  was  not  a  Frenchman,  he  was 
not  a  Dutchman, — he  was  a  Spaniard  of  the  Span- 
iards, as  Shakespeare  was  an  Englishman  of  the 
English. 

Having  wandered  far  afield  in  the  endeavor  to 
point  out  the  intimate  connection  between,  first,  a 
man  and  his  work, — which  connection  every  one 
admits, — and,  secondly,  between  the  race  and  the 
work, — a  connection  which  is  not  so  readily  per- 
ceived,— let  us  return  to  Whistler,  whose  work  fur- 
nishes proof  positive  of  what  has  been  said. 

It  is  commonly  taken  for  granted  that  if  a  man 
lives  and  studies  and  works  abroad  for  many  years 
he  loses  his  individuality  and  becomes  in  some  mys- 
terous  manner  the  offspring  of  the  country  where 
he  works.  It  is  assumed  that  American  painters 
residing  in  Rome  become  more  or  less  Italian  ;  that 
those  residing  in  Paris  become  more  or  less  French  ; 

68 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


that  those  residing  in  London  become  more  or  less 
English  ;  while  those  who  move  restlessly  from  place  to 
place  become  more  or  less  of  characterless  cosmopo- 
lites. All  of  which  is  true  inversely  to  the  real  strength 
and  genius  of  the  artist.  A  weak  man  is  swerved  by 
this  influence  and  that  and — chameleon  like — takes 
on  the  hues  of  his  surroundings,  but  a  strong  man 
simply  absorbs  and  assimilates  without  in  the  slight- 
est degree  losing  his  individuality.  Unhappily, 
many  American  artists  residing  abroad  possess  so 
little  stamina,  so  little  of  real  character,  so  little  of 
genius,  that  they  are — like  topers — dependent  upon 
the  daily  stimulus  afforded  by  the  manifold  art 
activities  about  them  ;  they  never  get  out  of  school, 
but  remain  helplessly  dependent  upon  teachers  and 
copy-books.  The  annual  Salon,  like  a  college  com- 
mencement day,  is  their  great  incentive  ;  their  petty- 
exhibitions  are  so  many  field-days  necessary  to 
sustain  childish  enthusiasm. 

Happily,  all  do  not  yield  to  those  influences,  and 
no  two  yield  in  precisely  the  same  degree, — the  ex- 
tent to  which  individuality  is  lost  depending  upon 
the  weakness  of  the  man.  A  poor,  weak,  wishy- 
washy  American  quickly  falls  into  the  habit  of  paint- 
ing pictures  after  the  manner  of  those  about  him, 
and  his  mannerisms  out-Herod  Herod  ;  others,  with 
more  character,  yield  less  to  their  environment  ; 
while  the  chosen  few  simply  absorb  whatever  of 
good  they  find,  and  without  yielding  a  jot  of  their 
individuality,  without  swerving  to  the  right  or  to  the 
left,  go  on  producing  after  their  own  fashion  things 

69 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


which  belong  to  them  and  the  race  that  produced 
them. 

For  more  than  forty  years  Whistler  was  the  con- 
spicuous example  of  the  last-named  class, — a  class 
so  small  that  it  included  besides  himself — no  others. 

Great  as  certain  of  our  American  artists  residing 
abroad  undoubtedly  are,  good  as  many  of  these 
surely  are,  creditable  on  the  whole  as  all  are  to 
American  art,  there  is  not  one  whose  work  does  not 
betray  the  influences  of  his  environment ;  there  is 
not  one  who  has  not  sacrificed  something  of  his  origi- 
nality, something  of  his  strength,  something  of  his 
native  force  and  character  on  strange  altars,  saving 
and  excepting,  always,  Whistler. 

The  most  that  men  have  ventured  to  say  is  that 
he  was  influenced  by  Velasquez,  though  he  himself 
has  said  he  never  visited  Madrid, — a  statement  many 
insist  cannot  be  true  ;  others  say  he  has  been  in- 
fluenced by  Japanese  art, — but  Velasquez  and  the  art 
of  Japan  are  far  from  French  or  English  art  of  the 
nineteenth  century ;  and  the  assertion  that  he  was 
influenced  by  either  is  a  confession  that  he  lived  un- 
scathed amidst  his  surroundings. 

Back  of  the  art  of  Japan  is  the  purer  art  of  China  ; 
and  to  that  source  must  we  go  if  we  seek  the  factors 
that  influenced  Whistler,  for  he  loved  the  porcelain 
and  pottery  of  China  long  before  they  were  collected 
by  the  museums  and  amateurs  of  Europe. 

"When  no  one  cared  for  it,"  he  said,  "I  used  to 
find  in  Amsterdam  the  most  beautiful  blue-and- 

70 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


white  china.  That  was  a  good  many  years  ago  ;  it 
is  all  gone  now." 

Old  Delft  did  not  inspire  him  with  any  enthu- 
siasm.    "  Crude,  crude,  crude." 

This  art  of  China,  as  reflected  and  elaborated  in 
that  of  Japan,  influenced  him, — of  that  there  can  be 
no  doubt, — and  he  recognized  what  was  good  in 
Japanese  art  before  others  gave  it  any  attention. 

The  art  of  Velasquez  had  its  due  weight,  for  he 
loved  the  work  of  the  Spanish  master;  and  if  he  never 
visited  Madrid,  perhaps  it  was  because  he  feared 
falling  too  much  under  its  influence.  But  he  went 
frequently  to  the  Louvre,  and  invariably  to  the 
little  "Infanta,"  which  he  would  look  at  long  and 
earnestly,  and  to  Titian's  "  Man  with  the  Glove," 
which  was  a  favorite,  and  to  certain  Rembrandts, 
and  to  Franz  Hals,  and  a  few,  a  very  few  others, — 
the  gems  of  the  collection, — ignoring  completely 
the  pictures  which  commonly  attract,  never  once 
glancing  up  at  the  huge  canvases  by  Rubens  and 
his  pupils  ;  in  fact,  so  far  as  he  was  concerned  the 
walls  might  have  been  bare  save  for  a  half-dozen 
masterpieces  ;  and  these  he  really  did  love.  There 
was  no  mistaking  his  attitude  towards  them.  It  was 
one  of  reverential  affection.  He  appreciated  a 
really  good  thing,  whether  he  or  some  one  else  had 
done  it,  and  he  hated  above  everything  sham  and 
pretence  and  foolish  display.  To  him  a  picture  the 
size  of  one's  hand,  if  well  and  conscientiously  done, 
was  just  as  important  as  a  full-length  portrait. 

The  Italian  masters  influenced  him,  for  he  often 
7i 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


spoke  of  them,  of  the  wonderful  effects  they  ob- 
tained with  such  simple  materials  and  such  straight- 
forward methods  ;  their  mastery  of  color  influenced 
him,  and  he  sought,  so  far  as  possible,  to  discover 
the  pigments  and  the  methods  they  used. 

Those  are  the  factors  which  helped  to  make  Whist- 
ler,— the  purest  art ;  he  was  not  influenced  by  what 
went  on  about  him,  or  by  what  was  said  about  him. 
So  little  did  he  care  what  others  were  doing  or  how 
they  did  it  that  his  very  brushes  and  pigments  were 
different ;  and  his  methods  were  so  peculiarly  his  own 
that  no  one  painted  at  all  like  him,  and  his  fellow- 
artists  looked  on  in  amazement. 

The  wave  of  impressionism  which  submerged  all 
Paris  in  the  very  midst  of  his  career  left  him  unaf- 
fected,— for  his  art  was  an  older  and  truer  impres- 
sionism, an  impressionism  that  did  not  depend  upon 
the  size  of  brushes  or  the  consistency  of  pigments. 

A  visitor  once  said  to  him  : 

"  Mr.  Whistler,  it  seems  to  me  you  do  not  use 
some  of  those  very  expensive  and  brilliant  colors 
which  are  in  vogue  nowadays." 

"No."  And  he  diligently  worked  away  at  his 
palette.  "I  can't  afford  to, — they  are  so  apt  to 
spoil  the  picture." 

"  But  they  are  effective." 

"  For  how  long  ?  A  year,  or  a  score  of  years,  per- 
haps ;  but  who  can  tell  what  they  will  be  a  century 
or  five  centuries  hence.  The  old  masters  used  sim- 
ple pigments  which  they  ground  themselves.     I  try 

72 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


to  use  what  they  used.  After  all,  it  is  not  so  much 
what  one  uses  as  the  way  it  is  used." 

Much  of  the  foregoing  argument  concerning  the 
Americanism  of  Whistler  and  his  art  may  seem  to 
be  contradicted  by  his  own  express  utterances. 

For  did  he  not  say  in  his  "Ten  o'Clock"  ? 

"  Listen  !    There  never  was  an  artistic  period." 

" There  never  was  an  art-loving  nation." 

And  he  pointed  out  how  the  man  who,  "  differing 
from  the  rest,"  who  "stayed  by  the  tents  with  the 
women  and  traced  strange  devices  with  a  burnt  stick 
upon  a  gourd,  .  .  .  who  took  no  joy  in  the  ways  of 
his  brethren,  .  .  .  who  perceived  in  nature  about 
him  curious  curvings,  as  faces  are  seen  in  the  fire, 
this  dreamer  apart,  was  the  first  artist." 

"And  presently  there  came  to  this  man  another — 
and,  in  time,  others — of  like  nature,  chosen  by  the 
gods  ;  and  so  they  worked  together  ;  and  soon  they 
fashioned,  from  the  moistened  earth,  forms  re- 
sembling the  gourd.  And  with  the  power  of  crea- 
tion, the  heirloom  of  the  artist,  presently  they  went 
beyond  the  slovenly  suggestion  of  nature,  and  the 
first  vase  was  born,  in  beautiful  proportion." 

And  the  toilers  and  the  heroes  were  athrist,  "  and 
all  drank  alike  from  the  artist's  goblets,  fashioned 
cunningly,  taking  no  note  the  while  of  the  crafts- 
man's pride,  and  understanding  not  his  glory  in  his 
work  ;  drinking  at  the  cup,  not  from  choice,  not  from 
a  consciousness  that  it  was  beautiful,  but  because, 
forsooth,  there  was  no  other  !" 

73 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


"And  the  people  questioned  not,  and  had  nothing 
to  say  in  the  matter." 

"  So  Greece  was  in  its  splendor,  and  art  reigned 
supreme, — by  force  of  fact,  not  by  election, — and 
there  was  no  meddling  by  the  outsider." 

Again  he  says  : 

"The  master  stands  in  no  relation  to  the  moment 
at  which  he  occurs  a  monument  of  isolation,  hinting 
at  sadness,  having  no  part  in  the  progress  of  his 
fellow-men." 

Those  are  the  propositions  which  called  out  the 
reply — positive  and  intemperate — from  Swinburne,1 
and  so  estranged  the  two,  and  which  to  this  day 
have  proved  huge  stumbling-blocks  in  the  paths 
of  those  who  try  to  understand  Whistler. 

For  the  world  does  believe  that  there  have  been 
"artistic  periods,"  that  there  have  been  "art-loving 
nations,"  that  in  some  mysterious  manner  the  master 
does  stand  in  "  relation  to  the  moment  at  which  he 
occurs." 

And  the  world  is  right ;  though  it  does  not  neces- 
sarily follow  that  Whistler  was  wrong  in  the  particu- 
lar views  he  had  in  mind  when  he  uttered  his  epi- 
grammatic propositions. 

In  one  sense  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  the 
master  does  seem  to  stand  apart,  "  a  mouument  of 
isolation,"  that  he  does  seem  to  happen  without  any 
causal  connection  with  either  parents  or  country, 


1  Fortnightly  Review,  June,  1888. 
74 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


time  or  place, — for  who  could  have  fortold  the  great- 
ness of  Shakespeare  from  an  acquaintance  with  those 
obscure  individuals  his  father  and  mother,  or  from 
a  knowledge  of  Stratford  and  its  environs?  Who 
could  have  predicted  the  triumphs  of  Napoleon 
from  a  study  of  his  Corsican  forbears,  or  the  strange 
genius  of  Lincoln  from  his  illiterate  progenitors  and 
humble  surroundings,  or  the  elemental  force  of 
Walt  Whitman  from  his  ancestry  and  American  con- 
ditions ? 

No  one  ;  and  yet  there  is  the  profound  conviction 
that  each  of  these  men,  like  every  great  man, — 
prophet,  king,  statesman  warrior,  poet,  or  painter, — 
appeared,  not  miraculously,  but  as  the  inevitable 
result  of  irresistible  forces  ;  that  the  brilliant  man 
is,  after  all,  the  son  of  his  parents  and  the  child  of 
his  times. 

In  the  mystery  of  generation  two  stupidities  fused 
in  the  alembic  of  maternity  produce  a  genius. 

The  occasion  does  not  create,  but  calls  forth  its 
master.  Every  war  has  its  great  general,  every  crisis 
its  great  leader,  and  in  the  world  of  art  great  artists 
respond  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  hour. 

The  bent  of  a  nation  determines  the  occupations 
of  her  sons, — towards  war  and  conquest,  towards 
peace  and  industry,  towards  things  artistic  or  things 
commercial,  all  as  the  case  may  be. 

It  is  not  the  birth  of  the  poet  that  turns  the  nation 
from  commerce  to  poetry  ;  it  is  rather  the  imper- 
ceptible development  of  the  nation  itself  in  the  direc- 

75 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


tion  of  the  ideal  that  calls  into  activity — not  being — 
the  poet. 

Neither  race  nor  nation  can  by  its  fiat  create  a 
poet ;  but  it  can  by  its  encouragement  stimulate  his 
activity  and  rouse  him  to  his  best.  It  could  not 
create  a  Keats  ;  but  it  might  have  urged  him  on  to 
even  greater  heights  than  he  attained, — for  who  can 
doubt  that  his  clear,  pure  crystalline  song  was  stifled 
for  lack  of  appreciation  ? 

Now  and  then  a  genius,  such  as  Carlyle,  such  as 
Whistler,  such  as  Whitman,  asserts  himself  in  spite 
of  all  rebuffs,  for  each  of  these  men  pursued  his 
chosen  path  regardless  of  all  revilings ;  but,  so  sus- 
ceptible is  genius  to  encouragement  and  discourage- 
ment, that,  for  the  most  part,  it  droops  before  the 
withering  blast  of  adverse  criticism,  and  only  those 
of  hearts  so  strong  and  wills  so  stubborn  that  op- 
position inflames  them  to  greater  efforts  make  head- 
way against  the  world. 

It  was  no  one  genius  that  made  the  monuments 
and  literature  of  Greece,  the  art  of  China  and 
Japan,  the  paintings  of  Italy,  the  Gothic  cathedrals 
of  France  and  England  ;  it  was  the  demand  for  all 
these  things  and  their  appreciation  by  those  who 
could  not  do  them  that  called  forth  and  encouraged 
the  doers. 

The  first  artist  may  neglect  the  chase  and  the 
field  and  remain  by  the  tents  idly  tracing  strange 
designs  upon  gourds  ;  but  unless  those  who  till  the 

76 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


soil  and  bring  in  the  food  see  his  decorated  gourds 
and  like  them,  and  prefer  them  to  the  plain  ones 
which  abound,  and  are  willing  to  give  him  food  and 
shelter  for  his  work,  he  will  not  remain  by  the  tents 
very  long,  and  his  artistic  career  will  be  foreshortened 
by  necessity. 

But  if  the  toilers  and  the  hunters  like  the  dec- 
orated gourds,  and  the  demand  for  them  increases, 
others  of  the  tribe  who  have  talent  for  designing 
and  decoration  will  join  the  master  and  imitate  his 
work,  and  every  now  and  then  a  pupil  will  prove  a 
genius  and  surpass  the  "  first  artist,"  and  art  will 
grow  and  art-products  will  multiply,  but  only  so 
long  as  the  rest  of  the  tribe  are  willing  to  work  and 
toil  and  to  exchange  the  necessaries  of  life  for 
paintings  and  carvings  and  pottery ;  and  the  greater 
the  demand,  the  keener  the  desire  of  the  people  for 
decorated  things  in  preference  to  those  that  are 
plain  and  cheap,  the  larger  will  be  the  chance  of 
uncovering  now  and  then  a  genius,  until,  as  with  the 
Greeks,  the  effective  demand  for  things  beautiful, 
for  poetry,  music,  painting,  sculpture,  and  archi- 
tecture, becomes  so  great  that  we  have  an  artistic 
people  and  an  art-epoch, — that  is  to  say,  a  people 
that  is  only  too  glad  to  encourage  and  support  a 
large  number  of  artists  of  every  kind,  and  an  era 
when  of  a  given  population  an  unusually  large  per- 
centage is  devoted  to  the  service  of  the  beautiful. 

The  master  does  seem — as  Whistler  says — to  come 
unbidden  ;  but  he  will  not  remain  long,  and  others 

77 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


will  not  follow  in  his  footsteps,  unless  he  arouses  at 
least  sufficient  appreciation  to  give  him  life. 

The  future  of  art — of  literature,  of  the  drama, 
and  of  all  the  handicrafts — in  America  depends  not 
upon  the  coming  of  a  genius,  but  upon  the  growth 
of  an  effective  and  irresistible  demand  for  good 
things  ;  when  that  demand  is  sufficiently  imperative, 
a  Phidias,  an  Angelo,  a  Shakespeare  will  respond, 
for  genius  is  latent  everywhere. 

The  sudden  degradation  of  the  arts  in  Japan  within 
the  memory  of  man  was  not  due  to  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  talent  and  genius  which  for  nearly  a 
thousand  years  had  been  steadily — almost  methodi- 
cally— producing  things  beautiful,  but  it  was  due  to 
the  suppression  of  the  feudal  system,  of  those  great 
lords  who  from  the  beginning  had  been  the  sure 
patrons  of  art  and  supporters  of  artists,  and  to  the 
throwing  open  of  ports  to  the  commerce  of  the 
world  and  the  introduction  of  the  commercial  spirit. 

The  genius  for  the  creation  of  beautiful  things 
remains, — for  a  people  does  not  change  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye, — but  the  talent  is  no  longer  in 
demand,  or,  in  many  cases,  is  diverted  to  the  more 
profitable  pursuits  of  the  hour. 


78 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


IV 

Early  Days  in  Paris  and  Venice — Etchings,  Litho- 
graphs, and  Water-Colors — "  Propositions"  and 
"  Ten  o  Clock." 

After  leaving  the  coast  survey,  Whistler  went  to 
England,  and  thence  to  Paris  in  1855,  and  entered 
the  studio  of  Charles  Gabriel  Gleyre,  where  he 
remained  two  years. 

Beyond  the  fact  that  Whistler  was  for  a  time  in 
his  studio,  Gleyre  has  not  much  claim  on  fame. 
There  could  not  have  been  anything  in  common  be- 
tween the  master  and  his  pupil,  for  he  was  academic 
to  the  last  degree.  "Not  even  by  a  tour  in  the 
East  did  he  allow  himself  to  be  led  away  from  the 
classic  manner ;  and  as  the  head  of  a  great  leading 
studio  he  recognized  it  as  the  task  of  his  life  to  hand 
the  traditions  of  the  school  of  Ingres,"  whom  Whist- 
ler used  to  call  a  "Bourgeois  Greek,"  "on  to  the 
present."  He  "was  a  man  of  sound  culture,  who 
during  a  sojourn  in  Italy,  which  lasted  five  years, 
had  examined  Etruscan  vases  and  Greek  statues 
with  unintermittent  zeal,  studied  the  Italian  classics, 
and  copied  all  Raphael.  Having  come  back  to 
Paris,  he  never  drew  a  line  without  having  first 
assured  himself  how  Raphael  would  have  pro- 
ceeded." 

However,  there  must  have  been  a  certain  com- 

79 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


bative  streak  in  his  character  which  did  appeal  to 
Whistler,  for  in  1849  he  quarreled  with  the  Salon 
over  the  success  of  Courbet,  and  thereafter  sent  his 
pictures  to  Swiss  exhibitions. 

Whistler's  first  commission  grew  out  of  an  ac- 
quaintance made  at  West  Point.  At  one  of  the 
commencement  festivities  he  met  a  charming  young 
girl,  a  Miss  Sally  Williams,  and  her  father,  Captain 
Williams. 

While  a  student  in  Paris,  the  pretty  daughter  and 
the  bluff  old  captain  called  on  him,  and  the  captain 
said  : 

"  Mr.  Whistler,  we  are  over  here  to  see  Paris,  and 
I  want  you  to  show  us  the  pictures." 

Nothing  loath,  Whistler  took  them  to  the  Louvre, 
and  after  they  had  walked  a  mile  or  two  the  captain 
stopped  before  some  pictures  that  pleased  him  and 
asked  : 

'*  Do  you  suppose  you  could  copy  these  pictures?" 
"  Possibly." 

"Then,  I  wish  you  would  copy  this,  and  that, 
and  that,"  pointing  out  three  paintings.  "When 
they  are  finished,  deliver  them  to  my  agent,  and  he 
will  pay  you  your  price." 

Whistler  made  the  copies,  and  received  the  first 
money  he  ever  earned  with  his  brush. 

One  of  these  canvases,  a  copy  of  an  Ingres, 
turned  up  in  New  York  a  year  or  two  ago.  It  bore 
Whistler's  signature,  but  was  so  atrocious — imagine 
a  combination  of  Ingres  and  Whistler — that  even 

80 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


the  dealer  doubted  its  authenticity ;  but  when  a 
photograph  was  shown  Whistler,  he  recognized  the 
picture  and  told  the  story. 

Of  these  early  days  many  stories  are  told,  but 
they  are  all  more  or  less  apocryphal.  It  is  as  nat- 
ural for  stories  to  cluster  about  Whistler  as  for  bar- 
nacles to  cling  to  a  ship.  He  told  so  many  good  ones 
that,  as  with  Lincoln,  innumerable  good,  bad,  and 
indifferent  which  he  did  not  tell  are  attributed  to 
him,  and  thousands  are  told  about  him  which  have 
slight  foundations  in  fact. 

It  is  well  nigh  impossible  to  sift  the  true  from  the 
false, — a  thing  Whistler  himself  did  not  attempt, — 
though  it  is  possible  to  sift  the  wheat  from  the  chaff, 
the  inane,  insipid,  and  pointless  from  the  bright  and 
crisp. 

Any  man  can  vouch  for  a  story,  but  who  can 
vouch  for  a  good  story  ?  The  story-teller  ?  Heaven 
forbid  !  By  all  the  rules  of  evidence  the  testimony 
of  so  interested  a  witness  is  inadmissible.  The  bet- 
ter the  story,  the  more  doubtful  its  authenticity, — 
its  formal,  its  literal  authenticity.  The  better  the 
teller,  the  more  daring  his  liberties  with  prosaic  de- 
tails. A  good  story-teller  is  a  lapidary  who  receives 
his  material  in  the  rough  and  polishes  it  into  a  jewel 
by  removing  three-fourths  of  its  substance  ;  or,  under 
pressure  of  necessity,  he  deftly  manufactures  paste. 
To  be  without  stories  is  the  story-teller's  crime  ;  a 
wit  without  witticisms  is  no  wit  at  all,  hence  the 
strain  upon  veracity. 

6  81 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


Happily,  the  world  conspires  to  help  both  wit  and 
story-teller  by  supplying  during  their  lives,  and  in 
great  abundance  after  their  deaths,  stories  and  wit- 
ticisms without  end.  Give  a  man  the  reputation  of 
being  a  humorist,  and  all  he  has  to  do  is  to  sit  dis- 
creetly silent  and  watch  his  reputation  grow.  If  he  « 
really  deserves  his  reputation,  he  may  add  to  his 
fame  by  fresh  activities  ;  but  if  he  is  something  of  a 
sham,  as  most  wits  are,  he  would  better  leave  his 
sayings  to  the  imaginations  of  others. 

Whistler's  sense  of  humor  was  so  keen,  his  wit  so 
sharp,  his  facility  in  epigram  and  clever  sayings  so 
extraordinary,  that  what  are  genuinely  his  are  better 
than  anything  others  have  said  about  him  ;  therefore, 
it  is  a  pity  some  one  has  not  jotted  down  first  hand 
some  of  the  good  things  that  constantly  fell  from  his 
lips.  Perhaps  some  one  has,  and  his  life  and  sayings 
will  yet  appear  with  all  the  marks  of  authority  and 
authenticity. 

But  his  sharp  and  exceedingly  terse  sayings  often 
suffer  greatly  in  the  telling,  frequently  to  the  loss  of 
all  point  and  character.  The  following  instance  is 
in  point : 

A  group  of  society  women  were  once  discussing 
the  graces  and  accomplishments  of  Frederic  Leigh- 
ton. 

"  So  handsome." 
"  Plays  divinely." 
"Perfectly  charming." 
"Sings." 

82 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


"And  is  so  great  a  sculptor." 

Whereupon  Whistler,  who  was  of  the  party,  tim- 
idly advanced  the  query  : 

"Paints  a  little,  too,  does  he  not?" 

That  is  one  version  of  an  old  and  well-worn  Whist- 
ler anecdote,  and  other  versions,  which  are  at  all 
characteristic,  do  not  vary  in  more  than  two  or  three 
words. 

See  what  the  story  becomes  in  the  mouth  of  the 
incompetent.1 

"One  evening  a  dozen  of  us  were  sitting  in  Broughton's 
reception-room,  waiting  for  our  carriages  to  be  announced, 
and  Whistler  was  sitting  by  himself  on  a  lounge  on  the  other 
side  of  the  room.  We  were  discussing  the  versatile  talents  of 
Frederic  Leighton,  one  of  the  leading  painters  of  England, 
and  afterwards  president  of  the  Royal  Academy.  One  spoke 
of  his  astonishing  linguistic  accomplishments  :  he  could  ex- 
press himself  in  every  European  tongue  and  in  several  Ori- 
ental ones.  Another  mentioned  his  distinguished  merit  as  an 
architect :  he  was  building  an  addition  to  his  studio  which 
was  like  a  vision  of  Aladdin  or  Haroun  Al  Rashid.  Another 
called  attention  to  his  ability  in  sculpture  :  a  group  of  an 
athlete  and  a  serpent  was  then  exhibiting  in  the  Academy, 
which  challenged  the  works  of  antique  art.  Another  men- 
tioned his  talent  as  an  orator  :  no  man  in  London  could 
make  a  better  after-dinner  speech.  Another  praised  his  per- 
sonal beauty  and  grace  and  his  athletic  prowess.  At  length 
there  fell  a  silence,  because  all  of  us  had  contributed  his  or 
her  mite  of  eulogy, — all  of  us,  that  is,  with  the  exception  of 
Whistler,  reclining  on  his  elbow  at  the  other  side  of  the 
room. 

"  By  a  common  impulse  we  all  glanced  over  at  him  :  what 

1  The  Independent,  November  2,  1899. 
83 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


would  he  say?  He  partly  raised  himself  from  his  lolling 
attitude  and  reached  for  his  crush  hat  on  the  sofa.  'Yes,' 
he  added,  slowly  and  judicially,  as  if  benevolently  confirming 
all  the  praise  we  had  poured  forth  ;  and  then,  as  if  by  an 
after-thought,  calling  our  attention  to  a  singular  fact  not 
generally  known,  '  Yes,  and  he  can  paint,  too  !'  " 

After  all  the  verbosity,  padding,  and  penny-a- 
lining, the  point  is  missed  by  attributing  to  Whistler 
the  positive  averment  that  Leighton  could  paint. 

Small  wonder  that  the  writer  in  the  next  para- 
graph confesses  : 

"My  own  crude  first  attempts  to  understand  Whistler's 
paintings  were  dismal  failures  ;  and  of  course  I  imagined  that 
the  failure  was  in  the  painting,  and  not  in  myself.  I  could 
see  no  beauty  in  them  :  the  drawing  was  indeterminate ; 
the  colors  were  not  pretty  ;  the  pictures  all  seemed  un- 
finished." 

It  is  less  difficult  than  one  would  suppose  to  recall 
things  said  by  Whistler,  for  he  would  repeat  a  good 
thing  and  was  always  polishing. 

For  instance,  in  his  controversy  with  the  critics  he 
originally  said  that  "Ruskin's  high-sounding,  empty 
things  .  .  .  flow  of  language  that  would,  could  he 
hear  it,  give  Titian  the  same  shock  of  surprise  that 
was  Balaam's  when  the  first  great  critic  proffered  his 
opinion." 

A  very  literal  correspondent  wrote  to  the  papers 
that  the  "ass  was  right,"  and  quoted  the  Bible  in 
proof. 

Nothing  daunted,  Whistler  acknowledged  the  hit, 
saying,  "  But,  I  fancy,  you  will  admit  that  this  is  the 

84 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


only  ass  on  record  who  ever  did  see  the  Angel  of 
the  Lord,  and  that  we  are  past  the  age  of  miracles." 

Years  after,  in  referring  to  the  matter,  he  im- 
proved his  reply  to,  "  But  I  fancy  you  will  admit 
that  this  is  the  only  ass  on  record  that  ever  was 
right,  and  the  age  of  miracles  is  past." 

His  love  of  epigram  was  so  great  that  nothing 
which  was  terse  or  pointed  escaped  his  ears  or 
fled  his  memory. 

One  day,  while  lunching  with  a  friend  who  knew 
something  about  the  habits  and  eccentricities  of 
good  wine,  Whistler  was  telling  about  the  peculiari- 
ties of  Henry  James,  how  James  would  drag  a 
slender  incident  through  several  pages  until  it  was 
exhausted,  whereupon  his  friend  casually  remarked  : 

"The  best  of  wine  is  spoiled  by  too  small  a  spig- 
got" 

Immediately  alert,  Whistler  said  : 

"What's  that?  what's  that  you  said?  Did  you 
get  that  out  of  Shakespeare  ?" 

"Not  at  all ;  it  is  simply  a  physical  fact  that  if 
you  let  good  wine  dribble  through  a  small  spiggot 
you  lose  its  fragrance  and  character." 

"  God  bless  me,  but  I  believe  you  are  right ;  and 
it's  a  good  saying, — it's  James  to  a — drop." 

No  doubt  there  are  many  still  living  who  knew 
Whistler  in  those  early  Paris  days,  but  if  so,  few 
have  so  far  made  known  their  reminiscences.  One 

85 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


fellow-student  describes  one  of  the  places  they 
used  to  dine  inexpensively  as  follows  : 1 

"In  Paris,  in  the  fifties,  there  existed  in  the  Rue  de  la 
Michandiere  what  appeared  to  be  an  ordinary  Paris  creamery. 
In  the  front  shop  were  sold  milk,  butter,  and  eggs.  Over 
the  door  was  the  usual  painted  tin  coffee-pot,  indicating  that 
caffe  au  lait,  and  eggs,  butter,  and  rolls  could  be  obtained  in 
the  back  room. 

"  The  place  was  kept  by  Madame  Busque,  who  had  been 
a  governess  in  a  private  family  in  the  south  of  France,  and 
having  saved  a  little  money,  had  come  to  Paris  and  opened 
a  creamery.  The  very  day  she  opened  her  shop,  Mr.  Chase, 
Paris  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Times,  passing  by,  was 
attracted  by  the  clean  look  of  the  place,  and  stepped  in  for 
his  early  breakfast  of  coffee  and  rolls.  The  little  back  room 
contained  two  round  tables,  and  beyond  was  the  kitchen  with 
the  usual  charcoal  broiler  and  little  furnaces.  Chase  was  so 
pleased  that  he  came  again,  and  getting  acquainted  with 
Madame,  who  was  well  educated  and  very  ladylike  and 
anxious  to  please,  arranged  for  a  dinner  at  6. 30  for  a  party 
of  four.  Everything  was  good  and  so  well  served  that  soon 
she  had  a  regular  custom  of  American  residents, — literary 
men,  artists,  and  students  of  all  kinds,  art,  scientific,  literary, 
and  medical, — and  soon  the  place  became  famous.  Ameri- 
can dishes  were  introduced, — mince  and  pumpkin  pies  and 
buckwheat  cakes.  It  was  not  easy  to  reproduce  these  things 
in  Paris.  The  pumpkin  pie  was  a  trouble.  Madame  was 
told  how  to  make  it  by  a  man  who  only  knew  how  it  looked 
and  tasted,  and  who  neglected  to  mention  the  crust ;  and  as 
Madame  had  no  knowledge  of  pies  in  general,  she  served  the 
first  pumpkin  pie  as  a  soup  in  a  tureen.  Just  at  that  time 
came  in  a  bright  young  woman,  introduced  by  one  of  the 


1  Major  W.  L.  B.  Jenney,  in  the  American  Architect,  Jan- 
uary 1,  1898. 

86 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


habitues,  who  offered  to  come  next  forenoon  and  show 
Madame  Busque  how  to  make  a  genuine  Yankee  pumpkin 
pie,  which  she  did  ;  and  the  pies  produced  in  that  little 
creamery  were  famous  and  were  sent  out  to  Americans  all 
over  Paris.  Fine  carriages,  including  that  of  the  American 
minister,  to  the  amazement  of  the  neighborhood,  would  call 
for  these  pies  to  take  home. 

'•Among  the  habitues  was  young  Whistler,  then  an  art  \ 
student.  He  was  bright,  original,  and  amusing,  but  gave  at 
that  time  no  promise  of  any  particular  ability  as  an  artist. 
His  drawing  was  careless.  I  remember  one  of  his  pictures, 
— a  woman  seated  at  the  piano,  a  little  child  playing  on 
the  floor.  The  piano  was  so  out  of  drawing  that  it  looked 
as  if  it  were  falling  over.  As  students  are  always  fond  of 
guying  each  other,  one  said  to  Whistler,  '  Hurry  and  put  a 
fifth  leg  under  that  piano  or  it  will  fall  and  smash  the  baby.' 

"  One  day,  in  the  Luxembourg,  Whistler  had  his  easel  in  a 
crowd  with  others.  They  were  all  at  work  making  copies 
from  a  famous  picture  that  had  just  been  added  to  the  gal- 
lery. Whistler  would  paint  a  bit,  and  then  rush  back  to 
contemplate  what  he  had  done.  In  one  of  these  mad  back- 
ward rushes  he  struck  a  step-ladder  on  the  top  of  which  was 
a  painter.  Over  went  step-ladder,  painter,  and  all,  and  the 
painter,  trying  to  save  himself,  seized  the  top  of  his  own 
canvas  and  another,  pulling  them  over,  easels  and  all.  One 
knocked  down  another,  and  there  was  a  great  crash. 
Whistler  was  in  the  midst,  and  his  loud  voice  was  heard,  as 
he  sat  on  the  floor,  his  head  protruding  through  a  big  canvas 
that  had  fallen  on  him,  using  expressions  of  a  vigorous  type. 
He  was  seized  by  the  guardian,  because,  as  Whistler  was 
making  the  most  noise,  he  assumed  that  the  whole  fuss  was 
due  to  him.  This  was  quite  correct ;  but  all  the  painters 
coming  to  his  rescue,  telling  the  guardian  that  it  was  all  an 
accident,  he  let  Whistler  off. 

"  He  organized  a  company  of  French  negro  minstrels, 
writing  the  songs  and  stories,  and  gave  a  performance  which 

87 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


was  very  amusing.  Among  the  habitues  at  Madame  Busque' s 
was  a  student  from  the  School  of  Mines,  Vinton,  afterwards 
Professor  of  Mining  at  Columbia  College,  and  during  the  war 
a  brigadier-general.  He  himself  told  me  the  following  story 
in  1866.  One  night  in  South  Carolina  an  officer  wandered 
into  his  camp.  He  sent  word  to  the  general  by  the  sergeant 
of  the  guard  that  he  was  an  officer  who  had  lost  his  way, 
that  he  asked  permission  to  pass  the  rest  of  the  night  in  his 
camp,  adding  that  he  had  known  General  Vinton  when  a 
student  in  Paris.  General  Vinton  sent  for  the  officer,  whom 
he  failed  to  recognize.  After  some  thought  he  asked  the 
question,  '  Who  was  the  funniest  man  we  knew  in  Paris  ?' 
•Whistler,'  instantly  answered  the  officer.  'All  right,'  says 
Vinton  ;  '  take  that  empty  cot ;  you  are  no  spy.'  " 

Among  the  students  he  knew  in  those  days  were 
Degas,  Ribot,  and  Fantin-Latour,  whose  work  every 
one  knows. 

Manet  was  working  up  to  his  best;  in  1 86 1  he 
painted  the  "  Child  with  a  Sword,"  now  in  the 
Metropolitan  Museum  in  New  York,  and  altogether 
the  atmosphere  was  charged  with  the  strong  sulphur 
of  revolution. 

In  England  the  pre-Raphaelites — old  and  new — 
were  turning  the  hands  of  time  backward,  in  France 
the  Impressionists  were  pressing  them  forward,  in 
both  countries  the  ferment  of  change  was  working. 

When  only  twenty-four  years  of  age,  in  1858, 
Whistler's  first  etchings  appeared,  published  by 
Delatre,  with  a  dedication  to  Seymour  Haden,  his 
brother-in-law.  In  those  days  the  relations  between 
the  two  men  were  very  cordial ;  unhappily,  not  so 
later,  as  may  be  seen  in  "Gentle  Art." 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


One  of  Haden's  best  plates,  "  Battersea  Beach," 
bears  in  its  first  state  this  inscription,  "  Old  Chelsea, 
Seymour  Haden,  1863,  out  of  Whistler's  window," 
and  another  plate  of  the  same  year  is  entitled, 
"  Whistler's  House,  old  Chelsea."  1 

Prior  to  the  publication  of  the  "French  Set," 
Whistler  had  etched  three  plates,  which  were  cata- 
logued as2 

"Early  Portrait  of  Whistler.  A  young  man 
bare-headed.  An  impression  on  which  Whistler 
wrote  '  Early  Portrait  of  Self  is  in  the  Avery 
collection  in  the  Lenox  Library,  New  York. 

"Annie  Haden.  On  the  only  impression  known, 
now  in  Avery  collection,  Lenox  Library,  Whistler 
wrote,  'Very  early  ;  most  probably  unique.' 

"The  Dutchman  Holding  His  Glass.  This  is 
signed  'J.  W.,'  and  but  two  or  three  impressions 
are  in  existence." 

There  must  have  been  many  other  early  attempts 
before  the  "French  Set"  was  formally  undertaken, 
and  possibly  other  plates  and  prints  will  come  to  light 
in  the  rigorous  search  that  is  sure  to  be  made  for 
everything  that  he  ever  did.  A  plate  made  while 
in  the  service  of  the  coast  survey  is  in  existence, — a 
headland  embellished  with  vagrant  heads  and  fig- 
ures. Some  of  the  prints  are  to  be  seen  in  collec- 
tions. 


1  Wedmore,  Fine  Prints,  p.  103. 

2  Wedmore' s  Catalogue,  pp.  19-20. 

89 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


The  "  French  Set"  consisted  of  twelve  plates  and 
an  etched  title,  making  thirteen  plates  in  all. 

But  few  copies  of  the  set  were  printed,  and  the 
original  price  was  two  guineas  per  copy. 

It  is,  of  course,  quite  impracticable  to  give  a  com- 
plete list  of  Whistler's  etchings,  for  three  hundred 
and  seventy-two  have  been  duly  listed  and  described, 
and  it  is  altogether  likely  that  this  number  will  be 
increased  to  over  four  hundred. 

Whistler  himself  was  very  careless  about  keeping 
either  a  set  of  proofs  or  anything  like  a  memoran- 
dum of  what  he  had  done.  In  fact,  he  did  not 
know  what  or  how  many  etchings  and  lithographs 
he  had  made  or  how  many  pictures  he  had  painted. 

Everything  he  did  was  so  entirely  the  pleasure  of 
the  moment,  and  each  new  work,  whether  large  or 
small,  so  completely  absorbed  him,  that  he  quite 
forgot  the  labor  of  yesterday. 

All  his  life  long  he  would  begin  things  and  throw 
them  aside,  and  he  would  finish  things  and  throw 
them  aside  also.  To  him  the  only  hour  of  vital 
import  was  the  present.  To  the  very  last  his  work 
shows  the  enthusiasm,  the  even  more  than  youthful 
impulsiveness,  with  which  he  would  begin  each  new 
undertaking. 

He  could  never  work  at  an  etching,  a  lithograph, 
or  a  painting  one  moment  after  it  became  drudgery; 
he  could  never  finish  a  thing  simply  because  he  had 
begun  it,  or  because  some  one  thought  it  ought  to 
be  finished  ;  hence  endless  misunderstandings  with 
sitters  and  patrons,  who  could  not  understand  why 

90 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


what  they  had  bargained  for  should  not  be  finished 
and  delivered. 

No  matter  how  hard  at  work  on  any  subject,  he 
was  instantly  diverted  by  another  which  appealed 
to  him  more  ;  and  he  would  leave  a  sitter  who  was 
to  pay  him  a  thousand  guineas  to  sketch  an  Italian 
urchin. 

Unmethodical  to  the  last  degree  in  all  his  affairs, 
always  absorbed  in  what  he  had  in  hand,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  he  kept  little  track  of  the  things  he 
had  done. 

The  first  catalogue  of  his  etchings  was  published 
in  London  in  1874.  It  contained  about  eighty 
etchings.  In  1886  Mr.  Frederick  Wedmore  cata- 
logued two  hundred  and  fourteen,  and  in  1899  in- 
creased the  number  to  two  hundred  and  sixty-eight. 

In  1902  a  supplement1  to  Wedmore's  catalogue 
brought  the  number  of  known  prints  up  to  three 
hundred  and  seventy-two. 

The  "Thames  Set,"  sixteen  in  number,  did  not 
appear  publicly  as  a  "set"  until  1 87 1,  though  made 
many  years  before  ;  and  the  very  rare  early  impres- 
sions made  by  Whistler  himself  are  considered  far 
superior  to  the  prints  of  187 1  and  after. 

In  1880  the  Fine  Arts  Society  issued  the  "First 
Venice  Set"  of  a  dozen  plates,  and  in  1886  Messrs. 
Dowdeswell  issued  a  set  of  twenty-six,  known  as  the 
"Twenty-six  Etchings." 


1  Printed  by  H.  Wunderlich  &  Co.,  New  York. 
91 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


One  who  knew  him  in  his  early  Venice  days  gives 
the  following  reminiscences  : 1 

"We  were  often  invited  to  dine  with  Whistler,  whose 
apartment  was  on  the  next  flight  above.    He  came  to  our 

rooms  one  day,  and  said,  '  A  ,  I  would  like  you  and 

B  to  dine  with  me  to-day.    You  have  such  a  supply  of 

newspapers,  please  bring  several  with  you,  as  I  have  neither 
papers  nor  table-cloth,  and  they  will  answer  the  purpose 
quite  well.'  I  did  as  he  requested,  and  surprised  and 
amused  was  our  host  when  I  called  his  attention  to  a  column 
and  a  half  of  '  Whistler  stories  '  in  one  of  the  Boston  papers, 
which  was  serving  as  our  table-cloth. 

"One  day  I  called  on  Whistler  when  he  was  engaged  in 
decorating  the  interior  of  a  house.  He  lay  on  his  back  on 
the  floor,  and  the  handle  of  the  brush  was  a  fish-pole  which 
reached  to  the  ceiling. 

"Once  a  year,  in  the  summer  time,  it  is  the  custom  of 
Venetians  to  go  to  the  Lido,  a  surf-bathing  resort,  to  see  the 
sun  rise.  They  leave  in  the  evening,  in  gondolas,  accompa- 
nied with  the  inevitable  mandolin  and  guitar,  and  some- 
times with  an  upright  piano.  The  excursionists  make  a 
night  of  it,  and  Whistler  was  one  of  the  number.  Next  day 
he  wished  to  make  a  study  from  our  window,  the  approach 
to  the  Grand  Canal.  Leaving  him  for  a  time  by  himself, 
upon  my  return  there  was  a  striking  study  of  the  view  on 
the  easel,  and  Whistler  before  the  easel  asleep.  The  brushes 
had  fallen  from  his  grasp,  and,  well  charged  with  fresh 
paint,  were  resting  in  his  lap.  As  he  wore  white  duck 
trousers,  the  effect  can  well  be  imagined. 

' '  I  have  often  heard  him  use  the  word  '  pretty, '  when 
looking  at  a  study  that  had  no  particular  redeeming  feature 
to  recommend  it.  Not  wishing  to  wound  the  feelings  of  the 
artist,  he  would  remark,  with  that  peculiar  drawl  of  his, 
'That  is  pretty,  yes,  very  pretty.' 


1  W.  S.  Adams,  in  the  Springfield  Republican. 
92 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


"  One  day  he  called  upon  two  students.  On  the  wall  was 
the  study  of  a  child,  most  beautifully  done  by  one  of  them. 
Whistler  stood  before  it  for  a  long  time  in  deep  admiration, 
and  then,  turning  to  the  art  student,  said,  '  That  is  away  be- 
yond yourself. '  Truly  it  was,  for  I  called  again  a  few  days 
afterwards,  and  the  body  attached  to  the  beautiful  head  was 
not  worthy  the  brush  of  a  five-years-old  child.  And  I  won- 
dered how  such  incongruous  things  could  be. 

"  Whistler  was  very  loyal  to  his  '  white  lock  ;'  said  it  was 
an  inheritance  in  the  family  for  several  generations.  He 
wore  a  slouch  hat ;  and  I  have  watched  him  on  several  occa- 
sions, before  the  mirror,  where  he  remained  for  a  long  time, 
arranging  it  on  his  curly  hair  for  the  best  effect  before  starting 
for  the  Florian  cafe. 

' '  And  this  reminds  me  that  he  was  in  need  sometimes  of 
the  wherewithal  to  procure  his  coffee.  So  he  called  on  me 
for  aid.  It  was  amusing  to  me,  for  I  had  scarcely  soldi  to 
pay  for  my  own,  and  so  I  often  went  without.  However,  I 
could  well  afford  to  pay  for  Whistler's  coffee,  inasmuch  as  he 
was  a  fine  linguist,  and  I  called  on  him  to  assist  me  in  the 
battle  I  had  with  the  padrona  on  two  occasions.  The  mer- 
cenary woman  was  completely  nonplussed,  for  Whistler 
waxed  eloquent  in  the  Italian  tongue.  There  was  no  mis- 
take, he  was  in  dead  earnest,  for  his  gesticulations  and  ex- 
cited tones  of  voice  assured  it,  and  my  case  was  won. 

"  Tintoretto  was  his  ideal  artist  among  the  old  masters, 
and  he  often  spoke  most  highly  of  his  productions,  especially 
'The  Crucifixion.' 

"In  the  line  of  pastels  he  was  original,  doing  them  on 
ordinary  wrapping-paper.  They  were  simply  beautiful.  I 
saw  them  in  a  London  gallery  a  few  months  later,  and  they 
were  an  inspiration  ;  so  much  so  that  he  has  had  since  many 
imitators  but  no  equals. 

"On  one  occasion  I  had  a  demonstration.  We  set  out 
together  on  a  sketching  tour  of  the  town.  We  came  suddenly 
upon  a  subject  that  was  very  rich  in  tone — a  cooper-shop. 

93 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 

I  lost  no  time  getting  to  work.  I  threw  my  sketching-block 
flat  upon  the  pavement,  and  emptied  the  contents  of  my  box 
of  water-colors  upon  it  to  get  the  tone  quickly.  The  paper 
being  well  saturated  with  water,  made  it  an  easy  matter  to 
bring  forth  light  from  out  the  deep  tone  with  strips  of  blotting- 
paper.  I  was  not  aware  of  doing  anything  unusual  until  I 
heard  a  'Ha,  ha,  ha!'  which  has  been  called  Whistler's 
Satanic  laugh. 

"  '  What  amuses  you,  Mr.  Whistler  ?  Why  do  you  laugh  ? 
Are  you  making  fun  of  my  sketch  ?' 

4 '  '  Oh,  no, '  said  he,  with  assurance.  '  I  am  admiring  the 
ingenious  way  in  which  you  work.' 

* '  This  to  me  was  high  praise,  for  it  came  from  one  who 
rarely  indulged  in  praise. ' ' 

Another,  speaking  of  the  same  period,  says  : 1 

1 « I  first  knew  Mr.  James  McNeill  Whistler  many  years 
ago  in  Venice,  when  he  was  quite  unknown  to  fame.  He 
had  lodging  at  the  top  of  an  old  palace  in  the  uttermost  parts 
of  the  town,  and  many  days  he  would  breakfast,  lunch,  and 
dine  off  nothing  more  nutritious  than  a  plateful  of  polenta  or 
macaroni.  He  was  just  as  witty,  and  gave  himself  just  the 
same  outrageous  but  inoffensive  airs  as  afterwards  in  the 
days  of  his  prosperity.  He  used  to  go  about  and  do  marvel- 
lous etchings  for  which  he  could  find  no  market,  or  else  only 
starvation  prices.  When  he  was  absolutely  obliged  to,  he 
would  sell  them  for  what  he  could  get ;  but  he  never  lost  the 
fullest  confidence  in  his  own  powers  ;  and,  whenever  he 
could,  he  preferred  to  keep  them  in  the  expectation — nay, 
certainty — of  being  able  to  sell  them  some  day  at  a  high 
figure. 

"He  used  to  go  roaming  about  Venice  in  search  of  sub- 


1  McClure  s  Magazine,  vol.  vii.  p.  374. 
94 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


jects  for  his  etchings,  and  those  who  know  all  about  it  say 
that  the  charm  of  his  work  lies  quite  as  much  in  the  choice 
of  subjects  as  in  their  execution.  He  used  to  make  a  great 
deal  of  mystery  about  his  etching  expeditions,  and  was 
rarely  prevailed  upon  to  let  any  one  accompany  him.  If 
he  did,  it  was  always  under  the  strictest  pledge  of  secrecy. 
What  was  the  use,  he  would  ask,  of  his  ferreting  out  some 
wonderful  old  bridge  or  archway,  and  thinking  of  making  it 
immortal,  if  some  second-rate  painter-man  were  to  come 
after  him  and  make  it  commonplace  with  his  caricatures  ? 
On  the  other  hand,  if  some  friend  of  his  discovered  an  ideal 
spot,  and  asked  what  he  thought  of  it,  he  would  not  scruple 
for  an  instant  to  say,  '  Come,  now,  this  is  all  nonsense,  your 
trying  to  do  this.  It  is  much  too  good  a  subject  to  be  wasted 
on  you.  You'd  better  let  me  see  what  I  can  do  with  it.' 
And  he  would  be  so  charming  about  it,  and  take  his  own 
superiority  so  completely  for  granted,  that  no  one  ever 
dreamed  of  refusing  him." 

The  story  is  told  that  a  woman,  some  elderly 
countess,  moved  into  an  apartment  immediately 
below  him.  By  her  noise,  fussiness,  and  goings  to 
and  fro  she  annoyed  him  very  much,  and  Whistler 
wished  her  out. 

The  weather  was  hot,  and  one  day  the  countess 
put  a  jar  of  goldfish  on  the  balcony  immediately 
beneath  his  window.  During  her  absence  Whistler 
tied  a  bent  pin  to  a  thread  and  caught  the  fish, 
broiled  them  to  a  turn,  and  dropped  them  back. 
Soon  the  countess  returned,  and  on  finding  her 
goldfish  dead,  there  was  a  great  commotion,  and  the 
next  day  she  packed  up  and  left,  saying  that  Venice 
was  altogether  too  hot, — the  sun  had  cooked  her 
goldfish  in  their  jar. 

95 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


Of  Whistler's  etchings  Seymour  Haden  once  said 
that  if  he  had  to  part  with  his  Rembrandts  or  his 
Whistlers  he  would  let  the  former  go. 

This  collection  of  Haden's  came  to  this  country 
a  few  years  ago. 

An  enthusiastic  collector  says  : 

' '  I  should  say  of  Mr.  Whistler  that  he  was  an  artistic 
genius,  whose  etched  work  has  not  been  surpassed  by  any 
one,  and  equalled  only  by  Rembrandt.  Comparing  the 
etching  of  the  two,  it  should  be  said  of  Rembrandt  that  he 
chose  greater  subjects, — as,  for  instance,  '  Christ  Healing  the 
Sick'  and  'The  Crucifixion;'  in  landscape  'The  Three 
Trees  ;'  and  in  portraiture  'Jan  Lutma,'  '  Ephraim  Bonus,' 
and  '  The  Burgomaster  Six.'  It  certainly  cannot  be  said  of 
Whistler  that  he  ever  etched  any  plates  such  as  the  two  first 
mentioned.  Though  Rembrandt's  etchings  number,  say,  two 
hundred  and  seventy  plates,  when  a  buyer  has  bought  fifty, 
he  has,  no  matter  how  much  money  he  may  possess,  all  the 
Rembrandts  he  wants.  In  other  words,  two  hundred  and 
twenty  plates  are  of  little  value. 

"Whistler  has  catalogued  three  hundred  and  seventy- 
two  plates  ;  but  it  would  not  do  to  think  of  stopping  the 
buying  of  his  prints  with  fifty,  or  twice  that  number,  or  any 
other  figures,  indeed,  short  of  them  all.  The  difference  be- 
tween Rembrandt  and  Whistler  might  be  expressed  in  this 
way  :  Rembrandt  etched  many  things  whose  technique  was 
not  the  best,  whose  subjects  were  abominable,  and  whose 
work  generally  was  far  from  pleasing.  Whistler,  on  the 
contrary,  has  never  etched  a  plate  that  would  not  be  a 
delight  to  any  connoisseur. 

"I  have  fifty-five  Rembrandts,  and,  with  the  exception 
of  half  a  dozen  more,  I  have  all  that  I  want,  or  all  that  I 
would  buy,  no  matter  how  much  money  I  had.  Of  Whist- 
lers I  have  fifty-one,  and  I  carry  constantly  in  my  pocket  a 
list  of  as  many  more  that  I  would  be  glad  to  buy  if  I  had  the 

96 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


•chance.  I  can  add  that  if  I  succeed  in  getting  the  others  I 
shall  then  want  as  many  more. 

"While  Whistler  has  not  equalled  Rembrandt  in  some  of 
the  great  things,  yet  his  average  is  very  much  higher.  The 
latter  etched  scores  of  plates  that  do  his  memory  no  honor ; 
the  former,  on  the  contrary,  has  never  etched  one  that  will 
not  be  remembered  with  pleasure.  To  etch  a  fine  portrait 
is  the  surest  proof  of  the  master  ;  the  human  face  is  the 
grandest  subject  that  any  artist  ever  had.  I  have  always 
thought  that  Rembrandt's  'Jan  Lutma'  was  the  grand  old 
man  of  all  etched  portraiture,  though  it  is  hard  to  see  in 
what  possible  respect  it  surpasses  '  The  Engraver,'  '  Becquet,' 
'  Drouet, '  and  other  portraits  by  Whistler. 

"Rembrandt's  'Three  Trees,'  in  landscape,  is  a  greater 
plate  than  Whistler's  'Zaandam,'  though  the  latter  is  well- 
nigh  perfection.  I  know  no  Rembrandt  interior  that  ap- 
proaches Whistler's  'Kitchen,'  and  I  know  no  exteriors, 
unless  possibly  a  few  by  Meryon,  that  approach  his  '  Palaces,' 
'  The  Doorway, '  '  Two  Doorways, '  the  '  Embroidered  Cur- 
tain,' and  a  score  or  two  of  others  that  are  well  known  to  all 
lovers  of  black  and  white. 

' '  This  story  was  started  on  Whistler  ten  or  twelve  years 
ago,  and  has  been  on  its  travels  ever  since  :  Some  one  asked 
him  which  of  his  etchings  he  thought  the  best.  His  answer 
was,  '  All  of  them. '  And  he  told  the  truth.  Of  plates  that 
he  thought  much  of,  when  I  saw  him  thirteen  years  ago,  the 
little  '  Marie  Loches,'  which  is  another  name  for  the  Mayor's 
residence,  was  hung  over  his  desk,  and  I  distinctly  remem- 
ber that  the  fine  '  Pierrot, '  in  the  Amsterdam  set,  was  also  a 
prime  favorite  of  his.  Later  I  have  heard  it  said  that  the 
portrait  of  •  Annie'  he  regarded  as  his  finest  figure  piece." 

In  February,  1883,  ne  exhibited  in  London,  in  the 
rooms  of  the  Fine  Arts  Society,  fifty-one  etchings 
and  dry-points. 

It  was,  according  to  the  placards, — and  in  reality, 

7  97 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


— an  "Arrangement  in  Yellow  and  White,"  for  the 
room  was  white,  with  yellow  mouldings  ;  the  frames 
of  the  prints  white,  the  chairs  white,  the  ottomans 
yellow  ;  the  draperies  were  yellow,  with  white  butter- 
flies ;  there  were  yellow  flowers  in  'yellow  Japanese 
vases  on  the  mantels  ;  and  even  the  attendants  were 
clothed  in  white  and  yellow.  As  a  French  artist  re- 
marked, "It  was  a  dream  of  yellow." 

This,  however,  is  how  it  struck  some  of  the  angry 
critics,  who  were  impaled  in  the  catalogue  : 

"While  Mr.  Whistler's  staring  study  in  yellow  and  white 
was  open  to  the  public  we  did  not  notice  it, — for  notice  would 
have  been  advertisement,  and  we  did  not  choose  to  advertise 
him. 

"  Of  the  arrangement  in  yellow  and  white,  we  note  that  it 
was  simply  an  insult  to  the  visitors, — almost  intolerable  to 
any  one  possessing  an  eye  for  color,  which  Mr.  Whistler, 
fortunately  for  him,  does  not, — and  absolutely  sickening  (in 
the  strictest  sense  of  the  word)  to  those  at  all  sensitive  in 
such  matters.  '  I  feel  sick  and  giddy  in  this  hateful  room,' 
remarked  a  lady  to  us  after  she  had  been  there  but  a  few 
minutes.  Even  the  common  cottage  chairs,  painted  a  coarse 
yellow,  did  not  solace  the  visitors  ;  and  the  ornaments  on  the 
mantel-piece,  something  like  old  bottle-necks,  only  excited  a 
faint  smile  in  the  sickened  company."  1 

The  sea-sick  lady  was  probably  an  invention  of 
the  writer. 

Another,  apparently  somewhat  less  susceptible  to 
the  "  sickening"  effects  of  yellow,  simply  says  : 


1  Knowledge,  April  5,  1883,  p.  208. 
98 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 

"  Mr.  Whistler  has  on  view  at  the  Fine  Art  Society's  some 
half-a-hundred  etchings  ;  but  it  was  not  to  see  these  only 
that  he  invited  his  friends,  and  many  fine  people  besides, 
last  Saturday.  In  the  laudable  effort  for  a  new  sensation, 
he  had  been  engaging  in  literature  ;  and  a  grave  servant, 
dressed  in  yellow  and  white  (to  suit  the  temporary  decora- 
tion of  the  walls  during  the  show)  pressed  into  the  hands  of 
those  who  had  come  in  all  innocence  to  see  the  etchings  a 
pamphlet  in  which  Mr.  Whistler's  arrangements  had  ex- 
tended to  an  arrangement  of  critics."  1 

The  catalogue  which  stirred  the  ire  of  the  critics 
was  an  innocent  little  thing  in  brown-paper  cover 
containing  a  list  of  the  prints  ;  but  beneath  each  was 
a  line  or  two  from  the  critics,  and  they  were  all  there 
in  outspoken  condemnation  of  the  work  of  the  man 
who  is  now  placed,  by  even  the  critics,  on  a  plane 
with  Rembrandt.  Some  have  since  confessed  their 
errors  in  print  and  begged  for  the  mantle  of  charity. 

On  the  title-page  appeared  : 

"Out  of  their  own  mouths  shall  ye  judge  them." 

And  here,  as  an  example,  is  what  he  printed  be- 
neath "No.  51,  Lagoon;  Noon."  In  mercy  the 
names  of  the  critics  are  omitted. 

' '  Years  ago  James  Whistler  was  a  person  of  high  promise. ' ' 
"What  the  art  of  Mr.  Whistler  yields  is  a  tertium  quid.'1 
"All  of  which  gems,  I  am  sincerely  thankful  to  say,  I 

cannot  appreciate. ' ' 

"As  we  have  hinted,  the  series  does  not  represent  any 

Venice  that  we  much  care  to  remember  ;  for  who  wants  to 


1  The  Academy,  February  24,  1883,  p.  139. 
99 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


remember  the  degradation  of  what  has  been  noble,  the  foul- 
ness of  what  has  been  fair  ?' ' 
"  Disastrous  failures." 

"Failures  that  are  complete  and  failures  that  are  partial." 
' '  A  publicity  rarely  bestowed  upon  failures  at  all. ' ' 

Whereupon  Whistler  brought  the  catalogue  to  a 
close  with  these  scriptural  sentences  : 

"Therefore  is  judgment  far  from  us,  neither  doth  justice 
overtake  us  ;  we  wait  for  light,  but  behold  obscurity  ;  for 
brightness,  but  we  walk  in  darkness. ' ' 

' '  We  grope  for  the  wall  like  the  blind,  and  we  grope  as  if 
we  had  no  eyes  ;  we  stumble  at  noonday  as  in  the  night. ' ' 

"We  roar  all,  like  bears." 

Whistler's  manner  of  arraigning  his  critics  was  his 
own.  No  one  else  could  compile  such  delightful  bits 
of  literature  as  were  those  catalogues  he  issued  from 
time  to  time  ;  but  the  idea  of  publishing  adverse 
criticism  with  the  work  criticised  was  not  new. 

To  his  first  edition  of  "  Sartor  Resartus"  Carlyle — 
Whistler's  neighbor  in  Chelsea — printed  as  an  ap- 
pendix the  letter  of  condemnation  which  Murray 
the  publisher  received  from  his  literary  adviser  and 
which  led  to  the  rejection  of  the  manuscript. 

The  scheme  is  not  without  advantages, — it  amuses 
the  reader  and  confounds  the  critic,  to  which  ends 
books  and  paintings  are  created. 

How  the  galled  jades  winced  may  be  gathered 
from  the  following  mild  comments : 

"  Mr.  Whistler's  catalogue,  however,  is  our  present  game. 
He  takes  for  motto,  '  Who  breaks  a  butterfly  upon  a  wheel  ?' 

ioo 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


But  Mr.  Whistler  mistakes  his  vocation.  He  is  no  butterfly. 
He  might  be  compared,  perhaps,  to  a  bird, — the  bird  that 
can  sing  but  won't.  If  one  judged,  however,  from  some  of 
his  etchings,  one  would  say  a  spider  was  nearer  his  mark. 
But  a  butterfly  !  the  emblem  of  all  that  is  bright  and  beauti- 
ful in  form  and  color  !  Daniel  Lambert  might  as  reason- 
ably have  taken  the  part  of  the  Apothecary  in  '  Romeo  and 
Juliet,'  or  Julia  Pastrana  have  essayed  the  role  of  Imogen. 

"  Criticism  is  powerless  with  him  in  many  different  ways. 
It  is  powerless  to  correct  his  taste  for  wilfully  drawing  ill. 
If  a  school-girl  of  ten  showed  such  a  picture  of  a  human 
being  as  this  (referring  to  illustration),  for  instance,  we  might 
criticise  usefully  enough.  We  might  point  out  that  no  human 
being  (we  suppose  the  thing  is  intended  for  a  human  being, 
but  it  may  be  meant  for  a  rag-bag)  ever  had  such  features  or 
such  shape.  But  of  what  use  would  it  be  to  tell  Mr.  Whist- 
ler as  much  ?  He  knows  it  already,  only  he  despises  the 
public  so  much  that  he  thinks  it  will  do  well  enough  for  them. 

"Again,  criticism  is  powerless  to  explain  what  was  meant 
by  some  such  figure  as  this,  in  No.  33.  The  legs  we  can 
especially  answer  for,  while  the  appendages  which  come 
where  a  horse  has  his  feet  and  pasterns  are  perfect  tran- 
scripts— they  are  things  we  never  could  forget.  We  have 
not  the  faintest  idea  what  they  really  are.  We  would  not 
insult  Mr.  Whistler  by  supposing  he  tried  to  draw  a  horse 
with  the  customary  equine  legs,  and  so  failed  as  to  produce 
these  marvels.  Perhaps  Dr.  Wilson  knows  of  some  animal 
limbed  thus  strangely. 

"It  is  because  of  such  insults  as  these  to  common  sense 
and  common  understanding,  and  from  no  ill-will  we  bear 
him,  that  we  refuse  seriously  to  criticise  such  work  as  Mr. 
Whistler  has  recently  brought  before  the  public.  Whatever 
in  it  is  good  adds  to  his  offence,  for  it  shows  the  offence  to  be 
wilful,  if  not  premeditated. ' '  1 


1  Knowledge,  April  6,  1883,  pp.  208,  209. 
101 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


Poor  etchings, — condemned  for  their  virtues,  con- 
demned for  their  faults, — there  is  no  health  in  them. 

And  these  and  many  similar  things  were  written, 
only  twenty  years  ago,  of  the  greatest  etchings  the 
world  has  known  since  the  days  of  Rembrandt. 

When  one  thinks  of  the  obscurity  of  Rembrandt 
to  the  day  of  his  death,  and  how  little  his  work  was 
known  for  long  after,  of  the  passing  of  Meryon  with- 
out recognition,  it  must  be  conceded  that  Whistler  is 
coming  into  his  own  amazingly  fast. 

Senefelder  discovered  the  process,  but  Whistler 
perfected  the  art  of  lithography.  It  was  not  until 
1877,  twenty  years  after  he  began  etching,  that  he 
made  his  first  lithographs. 

There  had  been  many  before  him,  but  none  like 
him. 

During  the  first  half  of  the  century  the  process 
was  in  great  vogue  in  France,  and  men  like  Ingres, 
Millet,  Corot,  and  Delacroix  tried  the  facile  stone. 

One  can  readily  understand  how  so  fascinating  a 
process  appealed  to  Whistler,  and  the  wonder  is  that 
he  did  not  attempt  it  earlier. 

The  use  of  transfer-paper,  whereby  the  artist  is 
enabled  to  make  his  drawing  when  and  where  he 
pleases  upon  the  paper,  instead  of  being  hampered 
by  the  heavy  stone,  has  greatly  advanced  the  art, 
though  drawing  on  the  stone  possesses  certain  ad- 
vantages and  attractions  over  the  paper. 

102 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


Not  many  years  ago  Whistler  was  called  as  an 
expert  witness  in  a  case  which  involved  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  use  of  transfer-paper  was  lithog- 
raphy. The  result  of  the  case  is  of  no  consequence. 
While  on  the  stand,  he  turned  to  the  judge,  and 
said  : 

"  May  I  be  permitted  to  explain,  my  lord,  to  these 
gentlemen  (the  jury)  why  we  are  all  here?" 

"Certainly  not,"  answered  the  court  ;  "we  are  all 
here  because  we  cannot  help  it." 

The  witty  ruling  of  the  court  deprived  those 
present  of  remarks  which  would  have  been  not  only 
to  the  point  but  greatly  amusing. 

It  was  in  this  case  that  an  artist  who  had  written 
many  fine  things  about  Whistler  and  his  work  ap- 
peared as  a  witness  on  the  other  side,  and  in  cross- 
examining  the  great  painter,  counsel  called  attention 
to  one  of  the  complimentary  things  that  had  been 
written  ("  Mr.  Whistler's  almost  nothings  are  price- 
less"), and  asked,  "You  don't  dissent  to  that,  do 
you,  Mr.  Whistler?" 

Whistler  smiled,  and  replied,  "It  is  very  simple 

and  very  proper  that  Mr.   should  say  that  sort 

of  a  thing,  but  I  attach  no  importance  to  it." 

And  it  is  really  true  that  no  man  ever  enjoyed 
more  having  nice  things  said  about  his  work,  and  no 
man  ever  attributed  less  importance  to  either  favor- 
ble  or  unfavorable  comments.  He  accepted  both  as 
a  matter  of  course  and  of  no  consequence  ;  neither 
he  nor  his  work  was  affected  in  the  slightest 
degree. 

103 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


In  1 896  he  exhibited  some  seventy  lithographs  in 
the  rooms  of  the  Fine  Arts  Society,  and  they  were 
a  revelation  of  the  possibilities  of  the  process  in  the 
hands  of  a  master  of  line. 

The  Way  catalogue,  now  out  of  print,  contained 
one  hundred  and  thirty,  purporting  to  cover  those 
printed  down  to  and  including  1896. 

To  this  list  must  be  added  at  least  eight  more 
which  are  well  known,  and  possibly  others. 

There  are,  therefore,  in  existence  nearly  four  hun- 
dred etchings  and  dry-points  by  Whistler,  and  prob- 
ably not  less  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  lithographs, 
— a  large  volume  of  work  for  one  man,  even  if  he 
produced  nothing  else. 

Stress  is  here  laid  upon  the  mere  volume  of  his 
work  to  meet  some  remarkable  views  which  have 
been  put  forth  concerning  him  and  to  correct  the 
popular  impression  that  his  controversies  diverted 
him  from  his  art. 

He  was  but  sixty-nine  when  he  died.  His  first 
etchings  appeared  in  1857—58.  For  the  remainder  of 
his  life  he  averaged  twelve  plates  and  lithographs  a 
year, — one  a  month  ;  and  of  this  great  number,  it  is 
conceded  by  conservative  experts,  the  percentage  of 
successful  plates  and  stones  is  much  larger  than  that 
of  any  of  his  great  predecessors.  In  fact,  there  are  no 
failures.  Some  of  the  plates  were  more  sketchy  and 
of  slighter  importance  than  others,  but  every  one 
is  the  genuine  expression  of  the  artist's  mood  at  the 
moment  of  execution,  and  precious  accordingly. 

104 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


Not  many  years  ago  there  was  in  a  certain  city  an 
exhibition  of  the  slight  but  pretty  work  of  a  famous 
French  illustrator.  By  his  grace,  and  especially  by 
his  happy  facility  in  the  drawing  of  children  in 
checked  frocks  and  gray  or  brown  or  blue  stockings 
and  stubby  shoes,  the  work  attracted  attention,  and, 
as  always  happens  with  the  pretty  and  the  novel, 
aroused  an  enthusiasm  quite  out  of  proportion  to  its 
real  merit. 

Two  men  fell  into  a  dispute  over  the  merits  of  the 
little  drawings,  one  siding  with  the  throng  and  main- 
taining they  were  great,  the  other  insisting  they 
were  simply  pretty, — too  pretty  to  be  good  and 
really  quite  hard  and  mechanical  in  execution, — in 
fact,  quite  inconsequential  as  art. 

"Look,"  said  he,  "  at  this  figure  of  a  child.  See 
how  the  outline  is  painfully  traced  in  black  and  then 
the  colors  filled  in  as  mechanically  and  methodically 
as  if  a  stencil  had  been  used.  What  would  a  Jap 
say  to  that?" 

"  He  would  say  it  is  fine.  It  is  Japanese  in  color 
and  motive." 

"  About  as  Japanese  as  a  colored  illustration  in  a 
modern  magazine."    The  discussion  became  heated. 

Oddly  enough,  at  that  moment  a  Japanese  expert, 
who  was  crossing  the  country  on  his  way  to  Europe 
to  catalogue  some  collections,  entered  the  room,  and 
he  was  appealed  to  for  his  opinion  of  the  drawing  in 
question.    In  broken  English  he  said  : 

"  It  is — very — pretty,  very  pretty  ;  but — I  not 
know  how  you  say  it, — but  it  is  what  you  call — 

105 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


Spencerian, — yes,  that  is  the  name  of  the  copy- 
books— Spencerian  writing,  while  a  Japanese  draw- 
ing is  the — autograph — that  is  the  difference — the 
autograph." 

And  that  is  the  difference  between  some  of  the 
work  of  even  the  great  ones  before  him  and  what- 
ever Whistler  did, — everything  he  touched  was  his 
autograph  ;  whereas  with  even  Rembrandt  there  is 
the  feeling  now  and  then,  though  seldom,  of  the  set 
purpose,  of  the  determination  to  secure  a  certain 
result,  of  the  intention  to  do  something  for  others. 
Whistler  never  did  anything  for  any  one  but  himself. 
He  never  touched  needle  or  brush  to  please  model, 
sitter,  or  patron.  Whenever  the  work  in  hand 
ceased  to  amuse  and  interest  him  as  a  creation  of  his 
own  fancy,  he  dropped  it.  He  could  not  work  after 
his  interest  had  evaporated. 

There  is  in  existence  a  water-color1  bearing 
Whistler's  signature  on  the  back,  and  also  this 
endorsement :  "  From  my  window.  This  was  his 
first  attempt  at  water-color. — E.  W.  Godwin." 

It  is  a  characteristic  view  of  the  Thames  with  Old 
Battersea  Bridge  reaching  almost  from  side  to  side. 

In  his  pastels  and  water-colors,  as  in  his  etchings 
and  lithographs,  he  never  forced  a  delicate  medium 
beyond  its  limitations. 

Of  all  artists  who  ever  lived,  Whistler  made  the 
least  mystery  of  his  art. 


1  Owned  by  Frank  Gair  Macomber,  Esq.,  of  Boston. 
1 06 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


He  not  only  expressed  his  intentions  fully  in  his 
art,  but  also  in  unmistakable  language. 

In  the  first  of  his  "  Propositions,"  published  many 
years  ago,  he  laid  down  certain  fundamental  prin- 
ciples which  controlled  his  use  of  etching,  water- 
color,  and  pastel,  the  first  proposition  being  : 

"That  in  art  it  is  criminal  to  go  beyond  the 
means  used  in  its  exercise." 

And  he  defined  the  limits  of  the  etcher's  plate, 
and  by  implication  the  dimensions  of  the  water- 
color  and  pastel — art's  most  fragile  means. 

In  the  famous  "Propositions  No.  2"  he  formu- 
lated the  principles  which  governed  his  work  as  a 
painter,  the  first  being  : 

"A  picture  is  finished  when  all  trace  of  the 
means  used  to  bring  about  the  end  has  disap- 
peared." 

And  the  last : 

"The  masterpiece  should  appear  as  the  flower  to 
the  painter, — perfect  in  its  bud  as  in  its  bloom, — with 
no  reason  to  explain  its  presence,  no  mission  to  ful- 
fil, a  joy  to  the  artist,  a  delusion  to  the  philanthro- 
pist, a  puzzle  to  the  botanist,  an  accident  of  senti- 
ment and  alliteration  to  the  literary  man."  1 

These  two  sets  of  "Propositions,"  read  in  con- 
nection with  his  one  lecture,  the  "Ten  o' Clock," 
which  was  delivered  in  London,  February  20,  1885, 


1  Gentle  Art,  p.  116. 
107 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


at  Cambridge,  March  24,  and  Oxford,  April  30, 
contain  his  creed  in  art. 

Many  a  painter  has  written  books  explanatory  of 
his  art,  but  none  has  ever  stated  so  plainly  and  so 
tersely  the  principles  which  actually  governed  all  he 
did.  Whistler  was  so  epigrammatic  in  utterance 
that  he  was  not  taken  seriously,  but  accused  of 
paradox.  But  whoever  reads  what  he  has  so 
soberly  and  earnestly  said  will  better  understand  his 
work. 

And  whatever  may  be  thought  of  reprinting  entire 
the  "  Gentle  Art,"  there  can  be  no  question  about 
the  great  need  of  scattering  broadcast  the  "  Propo- 
sitions" and  the  "Ten  o'Clock." 


108 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


V 

Chelsea — The  Royal  Academy — "Portrait  of  His 
Mother" — "  Carlyle" — Grosvenor  Gallery — The 
"  Peacock  Room" — Concerning  Exhibitions. 

After — possibly  because — his  "  White  Girl"  was 
rejected  at  the  Salon,  he  went  to  London  and  made 
his  home  at  Chelsea,  where  he  had  as  neighbors 
Carlyle,  Rossetti,  George  Eliot,  and  others  of  note 
in  art  and  literature. 

Carlyle's  description  of  Chelsea  as  it  was  in  1834, 
when  he  and  his  wife  moved  there,  is  interesting, — 
for  the  place  changed  little  before  Whistler  came. 
Writing  to  his  wife  concerning  the  house  he  had 
found,  Carlyle  said  : 

"The  street  runs  down  upon  the  river,  which  I  suppose 
you  might  see  by  stretching  out  your  head  from  the  front 
window,  at  a  distance  of  fifty  yards  on  the  left.  We  are 
called  '  Cheyne  Row'  proper  (pronounced  Chainie  Row),  and 
area  'genteel  neighborhood;'  two  old  ladies  on  one  side, 
unknown  character  on  the  other,  but  with  '  pianos. '  The 
street  is  flag  pathed,  sunk  storied,  iron  railed,  all  old-fash- 
ioned and  tightly  done  up  ;  looks  out  on  a  rank  of  sturdy 
old  pollarded  (that  is,  beheaded)  lime-trees,  standing  there 
like  giants  in  taivtie  wigs  (for  the  new  boughs  are  still 
young)  ;  beyond  this  a  high  brick  wall ;  backwards  a  garden, 
the  size  of  our  back  one  at  Comely  Bank,  with  trees,  etc.,  in 
bad  culture  ;  beyond  this  green  hayfields  and  tree  avenues, 

109 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


once  a  bishop' s  pleasure-grounds,  an  unpicturesque  yet  rather 
cheerful  outlook.  The  house  itself  is  eminent,  antique,  wain- 
scoted to  the  very  ceiling,  and  has  been  all  new  painted  and 
repaired  ;  broadish  stair  with  massive  balustrade  (in  the  old 
style),  corniced  and  as  thick  as  one's  thigh  ;  floors  thick  as  a 
rock,  wood  of  them  here  and  there  worm-eaten,  yet  capable 
of  cleanness,  and  still  with  thrice  the  strength  of  a  modern 
floor.  And  then  as  to  rooms,  Goody  !  Three  stories  beside 
the  sunk  story,  in  every  one  of  them  three  apartments,  in 
depth  something  like  forty  feet  in  all — a  front  dining-room 
(marble  chimney-piece,  etc.),  then  a  back  dining-room  or 
breakfast-room,  a  little  narrower  by  reason  of  the  kitchen 
stairs  ;  then  out  of  this,  and  narrower  still  (to  allow  a  back 
window,  you  consider),  a  china-room  or  pantry,  or  I  know 
not  what,  all  shelved  and  fit  to  hold  crockery  for  the  whole 
street.  Such  is  the  ground  area,  which,  of  course,  continues 
to  the  top,  and  furnishes  every  bedroom  with  a  dressing- 
room  or  second  bedroom  ;  on  the  whole  a  most  massive, 
roomy,  sufficient  old  house,  with  places,  for  example,  to 
hang,  say,  three  dozen  hats  or  cloaks  on,  and  as  many 
crevices  and  queer  old  presses  and  shelved  closets  (all  tight 
and  new  painted  in  their  way)  as  would  gratify  the  most 
covetous  Goody, — rent,  thirty -five  pounds  !  I  confess  I  am 
strongly  tempted.  Chelsea  is  a  singular  heterogeneous  kind 
of  spot,  very  dirty  and  confused  in  some  places,  quite  beau- 
tiful in  others,  abounding  with  antiquities  and  the  traces  of 
great  men, — Sir  Thomas  More,  Steele,  Smollett,  etc.  Our 
row,  which  for  the  last  three  doors  or  so  is  a  street,  and  none 
of  the  noblest,  runs  out  upon  a  '  Parade'  (perhaps  they  call 
it),  running  along  the  shore  of  the  river,  a  broad  highway 
with  huge  shady  trees,  boats  lying  moored,  and  a  smell  of 
shipping  and  tar.  Battersea  Bridge  (of  wood)  a  few  yards 
off ;  the  broad  river,  with  white-trowsered,  white-shirted  Cock- 
neys dashing  by  like  arrows  in  thin,  long  canoes  of  boats  ; 
beyond,  the  green,  beautiful  knolls  of  Surrey,  with  their 
villages, — on  the  whole  a  most  artificial,  green-painted,  yet 

no 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


lively,  fresh,  almost  opera-looking  business,  such  as  you  can 
fancy.  Finally,  Chelsea  abounds  more  than  any  place  in 
omnibi,  and  they  take  you  to  Coventry  Street  for  sixpence. 
Revolve  all  this  in  thy  fancy  and  judgment,  my  child,  and 
see  what  thou  canst  make  of  it. ' '  1 

Between  Whistler  and  Rossetti  there  sprang  up  a 
friendship  that  was  singular,  considering  how  dia- 
metrically opposite  they  were  to  one  another  in 
nearly  everything.  They  had,  however,  this  in 
common, — each  was  in  search  of  a  degree  of  the 
beautiful  quite  beyond  the  grasp  of  the  ordinary 
mortal ;  but  of  the  two,  Whistler's  is  incomparably 
the  finer  art,  for  it  is  the  purer  and  more  abstract, 
while  Rossetti's  painting  exhibited  the  literary  bent 
very  conspicuously, — it  was  inextricably  involved 
with  his  poetry. 

One  day  he  showed  Whistler  a  sketch  which 
Whistler  liked,  and  he  urged  Rossetti  to  go  on  with 
it ;  but  Rossetti  became  so  infatuated  with  his  con- 
ception that  instead  of  finishing  the  picture  he  wrote 
a  sonnet  on  the  subject  and  read  it  to  Whistler,  who 
said  : 

"  Rossetti  take  out  the  picture  and  frame  the 
sonnet." 

Life  in  Chelsea  in  those  days  had  its  drawbacks. 

Whistler's  utter  lack  of  commercial  instinct,  his 
dislike  for  the  dealers,  the  habit  he  had  of  falling 
out  with  any  one  who  discussed  money  matters  with 
him,  and  that  reluctance  to  part  with  pictures  which 


1  Life  of  Carlyle,  First  Forty  Years,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  345-6. 
in 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


was  a  conspicuous  trait  through  life,  often  involved 
him  in  trouble  financially. 

In  1879  E.  W.  Godwin  designed  and  built  for 
him  a  house  in  Tite  Street.  It  was  of  white  brick, 
and  known  as  the  "White  House,"  and  is  described 
as  having  been  very  artistic  in  so  far  as  it  was  settled 
and  furnished,  but  for  some  time  only  two  rooms 
were  in  order.  "  Everywhere  you  encountered  great 
packing-cases  full  of  pretty  things,  and  saw  prepara- 
tions for  papering  and  carpeting,  but  somehow  or 
other  nothing  ever  got  any  forwarder.  What  was 
done  was  perfect  in  its  way.  The  white  wainscoting, 
the  rich  draperies,  the  rare  Oriental  china,  the  pic- 
tures and  their  frames,  the  old  silver,  all  had  a  charm 
and  a  history  of  their  own."  1 

His  powers  of  persuasion  were  such  that  it  is  said 
he  once  tamed  a  bailiff — temporarily  in  possession — 
to  a  degree  of  docility  little  short  of  amazing, — a 
favorite  word  of  his. 

"When  the  man  first  appeared  he  tried  to  wear  his  hat  in 
the  drawing-room  and  smoke  about  the  house.  Whistler 
soon  settled  that.  He  went  out  into  the  hall  and  fetched  a 
stick,  and  daintily  knocked  the  man's  hat  off.  The  man 
was  so  surprised  that  he  forgot  to  be  angry,  and  within  a  day 
or  two  he  had  been  trained  to  wait  at  table.  One  morning, 
when  Mr.  Whistler  was  shaving,  a  message  was  brought  up 
that  the  man  (he  was  always  known  in  the  house  as  '  the 
man,'  as  if  he  were  the  only  one  of  his  species)  wanted  to 
speak  to  him. 


McClure"  s  Magazine,  vol.  vii.  p.  374. 
112 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


"  'Very  well,  send  him  up,'  said  Mr.  Whistler.  He  went 
on  shaving,  and  when  the  man  came  in  said,  abruptly, 
'  Now,  then,  what  do  you  want  ?' 

"  '  I  want  my  money,  sir.' 

1 '  '  What  money  ?' 

"  'My  possession  money,  sir.' 

"  'What,  haven't  they  given  it  to  you  ?' 

"  '  No,  sir  ;  it's  you  that  have  to  give  it  to  me.' 

"  'Oh,  the  deuce  I  have  !'  And  Mr.  Whistler  laughingly 
gave  him  to  understand  that,  if  he  wanted  money,  his  only 
chance  was  to  apply  elsewhere. 

"  'Well,  I  think  it's  very  hard,  sir,'  the  man  began  to 
snivel  ;  '  I  have  my  own  family  to  keep,  and  my  own  rent  to 
pay  ' 

"'I'll  tell  you  what  I  advise  you  to  do,'  Mr.  Whistler 
returned,  as  he  gently  pushed  him  out  of  the  room  :  '  you 
should  do  as  I  do,  and  have  "  a  man"  in  your  own  house.' 

"  Soon  after  this  the  man  came  and  said  that  if  he  was  not 
paid  he  would  have  to  put  bills  up  outside  the  house  an- 
nouncing a  sale.  And,  sure  enough,  a  few  days  after  great 
posters  were  stuck  up  all  over  the  front  of  the  house,  an- 
nouncing so  many  tables,  and  so  many  chairs,  and  so  much 
old  Nankin  china  for  sale  on  a  given  day.  Mr.  Whistler 
enjoyed  the  joke  hugely,  and  hastened  to  send  out  invita- 
tions to  all  his  friends  to  a  luncheon-party,  adding,  as  a  post- 
script, *  You  will  know  the  house  by  the  bills  of  sale  stuck 
up  outside.'  And  the  bailiff  proved  an  admirable  butler, 
and  the  party  one  of  the  merriest  ever  known."  1 

The  "White  House"  was  finally  sold,  and  it  is 
said  that  when  he  moved  out  he  wrote  on  the  wall, 
"  Except  the  Lord  build  the  house,  their  labor  is  in 
vain  that  build  it, — E.  W.  Godwin,  R.S.A.,  built 
this  one." 


1  McClure  s  Magazine,  vol.  vii.  p.  374. 
113 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


Speaking  of  architects,  the  story  is  told  that  he 
was  once  dining,  and  dining  well,  at  the  house  of  a 
friend  in  London.  Towards  the  end  of  the  dinner 
he  was  obliged  to  leave  the  table  and  run  up-stairs 
to  write  a  note.  In  a  few  moments  a  great  noise 
was  heard  in  the  hall,  and  Whistler  was  found  to 
have  fallen  down  the  stairs.  "Who  is  your  archi- 
tect?" he  asked.  His  host  told  him.  "I  might 
have  known  it ;  the  teetotaler  !" 

By  the  irony  of  fate  the  "White  House"  was 
afterwards  occupied  and  much  altered  by  the  de- 
tested critic  of  the  Times, — detested  possibly  be- 
cause he  occupied  and  dared  to  alter  the  house, — 
and  Whistler  asked  : 

"Shall  the  birthplace  of  art  become  the  tomb 
of  its  parasite?" 

It  was  this  critic  who  pronounced  a  water-color 
drawing  of  Ruskin  by  Herkomer  the  best  oil  por- 
trait the  painter  had  ever  done, — a  mistake  Whistler 
never  let  the  unlucky  writer  forget. 

In  those  days  he  exhibited  quite  frequently  at  the 
Royal  Academy. 

Among  the  earliest  pictures  exhibited  was  "At 
the  Piano."  It  attracted  the  attention  of  the  Scotch 
painter  John  Phillip,  who  wished  to  buy  it.  Whist- 
ler left  the  price  to  him,  and  Phillip  sent  a  check  for 
thirty  guineas,  which  was  entirely  satisfactory,  so  far 
as  any  one  knows. 

Thirty  thousand  dollars  has  already  been  paid  for 
one  of  his  very  early  pictures,  and  for  any  one  of  a 

114 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


half-dozen  of  his  important  canvases  a  bid  of  fifty 
thousand  dollars  may  be  had  any  day. 

It  is  a  question  of  only  a  few  years  when  Whist- 
ler's paintings  will  sell  as  high  as  Rembrandt's.  The 
great  galleries  of  Europe  have  not  yet  entered  the 
field,  and  many  of  the  great  private  collections  have 
no  example  of  his  work.  A  few  Americans,  but  not 
many  out  of  the  large  number  of  those  who  buy 
pictures  regardless  of  cost,  are  already  inquiring. 
When  all  these  factors  come  into  competition,  as 
they  will  soon  or  late,  prices  will  be  realized  that 
will  make  the  dearest  of  English  or  French  painters 
seem  cheap. 

In  1872  the  portrait  of  his  mother,  an  "  Arrange- 
ment in  Gray  and  Black,"  was  sent  in  to  the  Acad- 
emy, and  accepted  only  after  a  sharp  controversy, 
wherein  Sir  William  Boxall,  R.A.,  gave  the  com- 
mittee their  choice  between  hanging  the  picture  and 
accepting  his  own  resignation  as  one  of  their  num- 
ber. "For,"  said  he,  "it  shall  never  be  told  of  me 
that  I  served  on  a  committee  which  refused  such  a 
work  as  that."  The  picture  was  eventually  placed 
with  the  "black-and-white"  exhibit,  drawings,  en- 
gravings, etc.,  and  apparently  only  the  critics  saw  it. 
What  they  said  Whistler  has  himself  recorded. 

Somebody  has  asked,  Suppose  Whistler  had  been 
taken  up  and  made  an  A.R.A.,  and  in  due  course  an 
R.  A. — what  then  ? 

The  thing  is  well-nigh  inconceivable  ;  and  even  if 
an  A.R.A.,  his  innate  dislike  for  sham  and  preten- 

115 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


sion  in  art  and  his  sense  of  humor  would  have  pre- 
vented him  from  becoming  a  full-fledged  academi- 
cian in  a  body  wherein,  as  in  all  similar  bodies, 
mutual  appreciation,  or  at  least  mutual  restraint 
from  honest  depreciation,  is  essential  to  existence. 

Whistler  would  probably  have  accepted  the  first 
degree,  the  A.R.A.,  of  the  fraternity, — for  all  his  life 
he  was  personally,  but  not  in  his  art,  singularly  sus- 
ceptible to  the  praise  of  his  fellow-men  ;  but  he 
would  have  remained  in  the  Academy  about  as  long 
as  he  remained  president  of  the  British  Society  of 
Painters, — just  long  enough  to  overturn  things  gen- 
erally, and  then  get  out. 

Once,  when  taken  to  task  for  referring  to  a  painter 
who  was  only  an  AR.A.  as  an  R.A.,  he  retorted  that 
it  was  a  difference  without  a  distinction. 

To  the  orthodox  academicians  his  work  was  a 
mystery.  Once,  when  dining  in  a  restaurant  in  the 
West  End,  the  waiter,  having  difficulty  in  supplying 
Whistler's  wants,  said,  "Well,  sir,  I  can't  quite  make 
out  what  you  mean." 

"Gad,  sir,"  he  cried,  in  tones  of  amazement,  "are 
you  an  R.A.  ?" 

It  is  not  within  the  range  of  possibilities  that  the 
Royal  Academy,  or  any  other  institution,  would  have 
had  any  perceptible  influence  on  Whistler's  art, — on 
that  side  he  was  indifferent  to  the  influences  which 
affect  most  men,  to  considerations  of  gain  and 
popular  appreciation. 

In  the  account  of  a  certain  public  sale  the  state- 
ment was  printed  that  when  one  of  his  pictures  was 

116 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


put  up  it  was  loudly  hissed.  He  sat  down  and  wrote 
the  editor  acknowledging  the  compliment,  "the  dis- 
tinguished though  unconscious  compliment  so  pub- 
licly paid.  It  is  rare  that  recognition  so  complete  is 
made  during  the  lifetime  of  the  painter." 

Another  time  he  said,  "There  are  those,  they 
tell  me,  who  have  the  approval  of  the  public,  and 
live." 

Long  after  he  ceased  to  exhibit  at  the  Academy  a 
lady  met  him  at  one  of  the  exhibitions,  and  ex- 
pressed her  surprise. 

"Well,  you  know,"  he  answered,  "one  must  do 
something  to  lend  interest  to  the  show, — so  here  I 
am." 

Years  after,  the  Academy,  while  Leighton  was 
president,  invited  him  to  send  some  of  his  pictures, 
and  here  is  the  account  of  what  happened  : 1 

"  He  was  in  Brussels.  There  came  a  telegram  from  him 
to  me  which  was  a  cry  of  exultation  : 

' '  '  My  dear  S.  :  The  Lord  hath  delivered  them  into  my 
hands.    I  am  sending  you  by  post  their  last  dying  confession. ' 

"And  so  next  morning  the  post  duly  brought  a  letter 
from  Whistler  inclosing  the  official  proposal  from  the  Royal 
Academy,  signed  by  Mr.  Eaton,  secretary  to  that  distin- 
guished body,  inviting  Whistler  to  contribute  to  a  loan  exhi- 
bition then  presently  to  be  held.    Whistler  wrote  : 

"  '  Of  course,  I  refuse.  You  know  me  too  well  to  doubt 
that.  Do  they  think  they  can  use  me  after  so  long  trampling 
on  me  ?    Do  they  think  I  don't  see  what  they  want  ?  Do 

1  G.  W.  Smalley,  in  the  London  Times.  Reprinted  in  the 
New  York  Tribune,  August  19,  1903. 

117 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


they  think  I  need  them  ?  At  last  they  perceive  that  they 
need  me,  but  in  the  day  of  their  extremity  they  shall  ask  in 
vain. ' 

' '  I  am  quoting  from  memory,  but  I  give  the  substance 
accurately.  He  inclosed  his  answer  to  the  Academy,  long 
since  a  public  document,  with  permission  to  cable  it  if  I  liked 
to  America.  I  telegraphed  Whistler  begging  him  to  send  no 
answer  till  my  letter  should  reach  him.  He  wired  :  '  I  do 
not  understand,  but  I  will  wait  till  to-morrow.'  I  wrote  to 
him  in  the  best  ink,  as  Merimee  said,  at  my  command.  I 
tried  to  point  out  that  the  Academy  had  offered  him  the 
amende  honorable ;  that  their  invitation  was  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  their  error,  and  was  meant  as  an  atonement ;  that 
if  he  sought  to  humiliate  his  enemies,  no  humiliation  could 
be  so  complete  as  their  public  surrender,  of  which  the  proof 
would  be  the  hanging  of  his  works  on  their  walls,  and  much 
else  which  I  thought  obvious  and  conclusive.  And  I  begged 
him  to  remember  that  I  had  always  thought  him  right,  and 
always  said  the  world  would  come  round  to  him,  and  that 
now,  as  ever  before,  whether  right  or  wrong,  mine  was  the 
counsel  of  a  friend.  The  answer  came  by  wire  early  next 
morning  :  '  Alas,  my  dear  S.,  that  you  too  should  have  gone 
over  to  the  enemy  !'  I  believe  if  I  had  but  besought  him  to 
consider  that  his  acceptance  would  have  been  a  service  to 
art,  and  if  he  could  himself  have  thought  that  it  would  be, 
he  would  have. accepted.  I  never  saw  Whistler  again,  never 
heard  from  him  ;  a  friendship  of  twenty  years  came  there 
and  then  to  an  end — on  his  side." 

In  1897  a  circular  was  mailed  to  him,  addressed, 
"The  Academy,  England."  At  the  post-office  they 
added  "Burlington  House,"  where  it  was  declined. 
Finally  the  circular  reached  him,  bearing  the  en- 
dorsement, "Not  known  at  the  R.  A."  He  gave  it 
to  the  press,  saying,  "  In  these  days  of  doubtful  fre- 

118 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


quentation,  it  is  my  rare  good  fortune  to  be  able  to 
send  you  an  unsolicited,  official,  and  final  certificate 
of  character." 

The  fact  was,  mail  addressed  simply  "  Whistler, 
England,"  would  reach  him. 

The  Grosvenor  Gallery,  opened  in  1877  by  Sir 
Coutts  Lindsay,  offered  an  opportunity  to  many  a 
man  who  either  would  not  or  could  not  exhibit  at 
the  Academy. 

It  was  here  that  some  of  Whistler's  best  things 
were  shown, — the  portraits  of  Irving  as  Philip  II.  ; 
Miss  Rosa  Corder  ;  Miss  Gilchrist,  the  actress  ;  the 
Carlyle ;  Miss  Alexander ;  and  Lady  Archibald  Camp- 
bell, commonly  known  as  "The  Lady  with  the  Yel- 
low Buskin,"  and  many  of  his  famous  nocturnes. 

Whistler  had  a  very  peculiar  laugh, — demoniacal 
his  enemies  called  it, — and  it  is  said  that  while  his 
portrait  was  being  painted,  Irving  caught  this  laugh 
and  used  it  with  effect  in  the  part  of  Mephistopheles, 
— but  then,  who  knows  ? 

The  story  of  the  painting  and  the  naming  of  "  The 
Yellow  Buskin"  is  worth  repeating. 

Lady  Archibald  Campbell  was  an  exceedingly 
handsome  woman,  and  Whistler  expressed  the  desire 
to  paint  her  portrait  She  graciously  consented, 
and  the  sittings  began. 

In  those  days  Whistler  was  looked  upon  in  London 
as  little  less  than  a  mountebank  in  art,  and  one  day, 
putting  it  as  nicely  as  she  could,  she  said  : 

"  My  husband  wished  me  to  say  that  he — he  ap- 
119 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


predated  the  honor  of  your  inviting  me  to  sit  for  a 
portrait,  but  that — that  he  did  not  wish  to  be  un- 
derstood as  committing  himself  in  any  way,  and  the 
picture  must  not  be  considered  a  commission." 

"  Dear  me,  no,"  said  Whistler,  as  he  painted  away  ; 
"  under  no  circumstances.  Lord  Archibald  need  give 
himself  no  uneasiness, — my  compensation  is  in  your 
condescension.  We  are  doing  this  for  the  pleasure 
there  is  in  it." 

The  portrait  was  finished,  exhibited  as  "  La  Dame 
au  Brodequin  Jaune" — and  duly  ridiculed. 

Lady  Campbell's  friends  expressed  surprise  that 
she  should  have  permitted  so  eccentric  an  artist  to 
do  so  ugly  a  thing.  But  time  went  on  ;  the  picture 
made  a  profound  sensation  and  won  its  way. 

Some  time  after,  Whistler  met  Lady  Campbell  in 
London,  and  she  said  to  him  : 

"  My  dear  Mr.  Whistler,  I  hear  my  portrait  has 
been  exhibited  everywhere  and  become  famous." 

"Sh — sh — sh  !"  with  finger  on  lips.  "So  it  has, 
my  dear  Lady  Archibald  ;  but  every  discretion  has 
been  observed  that  Lord  Campbell  could  desire, — 
your  name  is  not  mentioned.  The  portrait  is  known 
as  'The  Yellow  Buskin.'  " 

It  is  now  in  the  Wilstach  collection,  in  Philadel- 
phia. 

Whistler  preferred  to  exhibit  his  work  under  con- 
ditions which  he  controlled.  As  early  as  1874  he 
gave  a  special  exhibition  in  London,  and  in  the  years 
1880,  1 88 1,   1883,  1884,  and   1886  he  exhibited 

120 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


either  prints  or  paintings  in  the  rooms  of  the  Fine 
Arts  Society. 

He  always  occupied  the  place  of  honor  with  the 
International  Society  at  Knightsbridge. 

Occasionally  he  would  use  the  galleries  of  dealers, 
but  not  often,  and  then  only  upon  his  own  terms. 

While  living  at  Chelsea  he  had  Carlyle  as  a  near 
neighbor,  and  of  his  own  notion  he  painted  the  por- 
trait that  now  hangs  in  Glasgow. 

These  two  extraordinary  beings  were  quite  conge- 
nial. The  dogmatic  old  philosopher,  then  past  sev- 
enty-five, sat  day  after  day  to  the  eccentric  painter, 
who  was  nearly  forty  years  his  junior,  as  patiently  as 
if  he  were  a  professional  model,  and  the  sittings  were 
long  and  tedious. 

One  day,  as  he  was  leaving,  quite  exhausted,  he 
met  at  the  door  a  little  girl  in  white,  and  he  asked 
her  name. 

"I  am  Miss  Alexander,"  she  said,  primly,  "  and  I 
am  going  to  have  my  portrait  painted." 

The  sage  shook  his  head  in  commiseration,  and 
muttered,  as  he  passed  on  : 

"  Puir  lassie,  puir  lassie  !" 

If  proof  were  required  of  the  underlying  sincerity 
and  earnestness  of  Whistler  in  those  days  when  the 
world  refused  to  take  him  seriously,  this  long  and 
intimate  association  with  Carlyle  would  be  more  than 
sufficient. 

They  were  neighbors.  Carlyle  had  every  oppor- 
tunity of  seeing  Whistler  on  the  street  and  in  his 

121 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


studio.  Seemingly  two  beings  could  not  be  less 
sympathetic,  and  yet  the  philosopher  who  had  so 
few  good  words  for  any  one,  who  was  the  implacable 
foe  of  sham  and  falsehood,  who  was  intolerant  of  the 
society  of  others,  who  cared  little  for  art  and  less  for 
artists,  freely  gave  his  time  and  society  to  the  most 
unpopular  painter  in  England. 

In  truth  there  was  a  good  deal  in  common  be- 
tween the  two, — in  the  attitude  of  the  one  towards 
literature  and  what  his  fellow-writers  were  saying, 
and  in  the  attitude  of  the  other  towards  art  and  what 
his  fellow-painters  were  doing.  Each  stood  in  his 
own  sphere  for  the  highest  ideals,  and  no  doubt  each 
recognized  in  the  other  the  quality  of  sincerity  in  his 
profession. 

Poor  Carlyle  !  your  name  should  never  be  men- 
tioned without  an  anathema  for  the  scavengers  who 
dealt  with  your  memory.  If  they  are  not  suffering 
the  torments  of  the  damned,  the  mills  of  the  gods 
have  ceased  to  turn. 

Froude  prefaced  the  Life  of  Carlyle  with  a  long 
protestation  that  it  contained  the  truth,  the  whole 
truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth  ;  which,  it  seems, 
according  to  even  his  notions,  was  a  lie  ;  for  in  the 
secrecy  of  his  closet  he  prepared  a  pamphlet  con- 
taining the  revelations  of  the  Jewsbury  creature, — 
the  expert  opinion  of  "  an  ill-natured  old  maid,"  as 
Mrs.  Carlyle  called  her, — to  the  effect  that  Carlyle 
should  never  have  married  ;  and  this  pamphlet,  con- 
taining the  salacious  tittle-tattle  between  himself  and 

122 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


this  old  maid,  is  given  the  world  as  presumably  his 
last  instalment  of  revelations,  though  no  one  knows 
how  much  similar  stuff  the  Jewsbury  creature,  a 
romancer  by  profession,  may  have  left  pigeon-holed 
for  still  further  harm. 

And  the  answer  to  it  all  is  that  Carlyle,  in  spite 
of  the  old  maid's  opinion,  was  married  ;  and  what 
is  more  to  the  point,  remained  married  forty  years, 
with  no  more  of  differences  and  dissensions,  even 
accepting  all  the  Froude-Jewsbury  tattle,  than  any 
good  wife  will  have  with  any  good  Scotchman ;  and 
during  their  long  married  life  she  was  a  help  and 
an  inspiration  to  her  husband,  and  after  her  death 
she  was  mourned  as  few  wives  in  the  history  of  man- 
kind have  been  mourned. 

A  depth  beyond  the  imagination  of  Dante  must 
be  found  for  the  Froude-Jewsbury  combination. 

As  the  portrait  neared  completion,  Carlyle  took  a 
good  look  at  it  one  day,  seemed  pleased,  and  said  : 

"Weel,  man,  you  have  given  me  a  clean  collar, 
and  that  is  more  than  Meester  Watts  has  done." 

The  portrait  was  begun  and  ended  as  a  labor  of 
love,  and  for  nearly  twenty  years  it  remained  unsold. 

After  Carlyle  died  some  citizens  of  Glasgow,  from 
purely  patriotic  motives,  and  with  no  appreciation 
whatsoever  of  the  painting,  thought  it  should  be 
purchased,  and  a  public  subscription  was  started. 

When  the  amount  first  talked  of — quite  a  small 
sum — had  been  nearly  subscribed,  Whistler  learned 
that  the  subscription  paper  expressly  disavowed  all 

123 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


approval  of  himself  and  his  art,  whereupon  he 
promptly  more  than  doubled  the  price,  to  the  dis- 
may of  the  canny  Scots,  who  wished  to  buy  the  por- 
trait without  the  art ;  and  when  they  hesitated,  he 
again  raised  the  price,  to  their  utter  discomfiture,  and 
the  picture  was  not  purchased  until  1891. 

It  is  now  owned  by  the  corporation  of  Glasgow, 
and  hangs  in  the  public  gallery  surrounded  by  a 
mass  of  lesser  works  which  completely  dwarf  its 
great  proportions  and  render  adequate  appreciation 
impossible. 

It  is  worth  while  to  visit  Glasgow  to  see  this  por- 
trait, but  until  the  authorities  have  the  good  judgment 
to  give  it  a  room,  or  at  least  a  wall  to  itself,  the 
journey  will  prove  an  exasperation. 

The  hanging  of  pictures  is  a  "lost  art and  most 
of  the  art  of  pictures  is  lost  in  the  hanging. 

A  picture  is  painted  in  a  certain  environment  of 
light,  color,  and  tone, — and  to  Whistler  this  environ- 
ment was  a  vital  consideration.  For  the  time  being 
the  canvas  is  the  one  conspicuous  thing  in  the  studio, 
of  even  greater  importance  than  subject  or  model. 
From  this  environment  of  creation,  and  with  which 
it  is  in  perfect  harmony,  it  is  violently  forced  into 
conjunction  with  great  squares  of  atrocious  gilt 
frames  and  expanses  of  clashing  canvases. 

A  gallery  of  pictures  is  the  slaughter-house  of 
art ;  annual  exhibitions  are  the  shambles  of  beauty. 

So  far  as  galleries  are  concerned,  the  advantage  is 
usually  with  the  dealer,  for  he  knows  the  value  of 

124 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


arrangement  and  shows  his  best  things  more  or  less 
detached.  One  by  one  the  gems  of  his  collection 
are  presented  to  the  customer  and  time  given  for 
appreciation. 

There  are  but  two  uses  to  which  a  painting  can 
be  put  with  any  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things  :  it 
may  be  used  decoratively  alone  or  in  connection 
with  one  or  two  others  which  harmonize  and  which 
are  distributed  to  produce  a  perfect  effect ;  this  is 
the  noblest  use  to  which  a  painting  of  any  kind  can 
be  put,  the  production  of  an  effect  in  which  the 
painting,  however  great,  is  but  an  element  in  a  per- 
fect whole. 

Another  and  commoner  use  is  the  enjoyment  of 
a  picture  by  itself,  as  one  reads  a  poem  or  listens  to 
music,  more  or  less  oblivious  to  all  surroundings. 
It  is  obvious  that  this  sort  of  enjoyment  implies  the 
subordination  of  all  surroundings  to  the  painting,  or 
the  poem,  or  the  music,  the  arrangement  of  the 
environment  so  as  to  secure  the  greatest  possible 
freedom  from  intrusive  and  distracting  sights  and 
sounds, — in  short,  as  regards  painting,  the  reproduc- 
tion in  a  sense  of  the  atmosphere  of  the  studio 
where  the  picture  was  created,  or  of  the  place,  altar, 
or  chapel  for  which  it  was  intended  ;  and  it  means 
most  emphatically  freedom  from  sharp  contrast  with 
pictures  by  other  men  and  of  other  times,  schools, 
and  conditions,  however  good,  which  will  clash  pre- 
cisely as  would  two  orchestras  playing  different 
pieces  in  the  same  hall. 

125 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


One  can  imagine  Whistler  and  Carlyle — painter 
and  philosopher,  two  masters,  each  in  his  vocation — 
in  the  studio,  and  the  growing  portrait,  a  thing  of 
beauty  there,  a  bond  of  union  between  two  men  so 
divergent,  and  one  can  imagine  how  beautiful  the 
portrait  would  be  anywhere  if  by  itself  amidst  har- 
monious surroundings,  whether  used  as  the  chief 
ornament  of  a  dignified  hall  or  placed  in  a  more 
neutral  atmosphere  for  study  and  appreciation. 
But  one  cannot  imagine  more  destructive  surround- 
ings than  those  of  a  public  gallery,  the  walls  of 
which  teem  with  writhing,  wriggling  things  in  huge 
gilt  frames  and  glaring  colors. 

And  the  painters,  who  ought  to  know  better,  but 
who  encourage  these  great  collections  and  exhibi- 
tions, who  live  for  them,  work  for  them,  slave  for 
them,  are  more  to  blame  for  the  existence  of  these 
heterogeneous  conglomerations  than  the  public,  who 
do  not  know  better,  but  walk  helplessly  about  amidst 
endless  rows  of  staring  canvases,  dimly  conscious 
that  all  is  not  right. 

Pictures  of  equal  merit  do  not  necessarily  hang 
together.  A  Valesquez  and  a  Raphael,  each  su- 
premely beautiful  in  the  place  for  which  it  is  in- 
tended, produce  an  inharmonious  effect  if  placed 
side  by  side. 

A  rabble,  with  men  or  pictures,  is  a  throng  com- 
posed of  more  or  less  incongruous  and  unsympa- 
thetic units. 

With  the  exception  of  the  few  instances,  as  in 

126 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


the  Turner  room  in  the  National  Gallery  in  London, 
where  the  works  of  one  man  are  grouped  for  the 
express  purpose  of  comparison  and  study,  every 
collection  of  pictures  is  a  rabble,  and  as  a  whole 
—ugly. 

Nor  does  the  grouping  of  the  works  of  one  man 
in  one  room  produce  a  beautiful  effect,  a  beautiful 
room  ;  not  at  all,  for  they  are  grouped  for  a  scientific 
rather  than  an  aesthetic  purpose,  for  the  purpose  of 
study  and  comparison  in  a  room  which  is,  as  it 
should  be,  otherwise  barren  and  neutral. 

One  or,  at  most,  two  fine  pictures  are  all  any 
ordinary  room  will  stand,  and  to  produce  an  effect 
wherein  nothing  overwhelmingly  predominates,  but 
everything  finds  its  place  and  remains  there,  re- 
quires genius  different  from  but  of  the  same  high 
order  as  that  of  the  painter,  and  that  sort  of  genius 
has  been  lacking  in  the  Western  world  for  some 
centuries. 

So  low  has  the  once  great  art  of  painting  fallen 
that  it  has  helplessly  relinquished  its  original  field 
of  great  achievement,  the  adornment  of  buildings 
inside  and  out,  and  that  has  become  a  separate  trade 
so  incompetently  followed  that  the  phrase  "  interior 
decorator"  is  one  of  reproach. 

And  yet  little  as  the  commercial  "interior  dec- 
orator" knows  about  decoration,  it  is  safer  to  trust  to 
his  fustian  stock  of  burlaps,  wall-papers,  imitation 
leathers,  metals,  lustres,  and  illuminations  than  follow 
the  guidance  of  the  painters  themselves, — for,  with 
rare  exceptions,  they  know  nothing  beyond  the 

127 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


narrow  confines  of  their  frames,  and  their  own  houses 
and  studios  resemble  curiosity-shops. 

The  art  of  decoration,  which  implies  the  co-op- 
eration of  architect,  sculptor,  and  painter  as  a  unit, 
has  not  been  practised  since  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  not  in  any  high  degree  of  perfection  since  three 
hundred  years  before. 

With  the  disintegration  of  the  union  among  the 
arts,  each  has  accomplished  endless  detached  and 
isolated  perfections,  but  nothing  that  is  really  worth 
while  in  the  sense  that  a  Greek  temple  or  a  Gothic 
cathedral  was  worth  while, — for  nothing  so  chaste 
and  perfect  as  the  former  or  so  sublime  and  beau- 
tiful as  the  latter  has  been  done  since  each  of  the 
three  constructive  arts  began  to  work  in  jealous  in- 
dependence of  the  others. 

Rossetti  and  Whistler  were  both  friends  of  the 
wealthy  and  eccentric  ship-owner  F.  R.  Leyland,  of 
No.  50  Prince's  Gate.  He  was  a  collector  of  things 
rare  and  beautiful,  a  "patron"  of  art  and  artists,  a 
musician,  and  altogether  a  character  one  associates 
with  Romance  rather  than  with  London. 

It  was  for  him  that  Whistler  painted  the  famous 
"  Peacock  Room,"  under  the  following  circum- 
stances : 

Leyland  had  bought  the  "  Princess  of  the  Land 
of  Porcelain,"  and  one  day  Whistler  went  to  see  it 
in  place.  He  found  it  in  a  dining-room  which  was 
richly  decorated  with  costly  Spanish  leather  and  a 
heavy  ceiling  of  wood,  a  place  altogether  too  sombre 

128 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


for  his  bright  and  brilliant  "Princess,"  and  he  pro- 
tested against  the  discord. 

"What  would  you  do?"  asked  Leyland. 
"  Paint  the  room." 

"What !  paint  that  beautiful  Spanish  leather?" 

"  Most  assuredly, — if  this  is  to  be  the  boudoir  of 
the  'Princess.'  " 

Whistler  was  told  to  go  ahead  and  make  the  room 
harmonize  with  the  painting. 

He  started  in  and  covered  every  inch  of  wall 
surface,  even  the  insides  of  the  shutters,  with  a  won- 
derful scheme  of  decoration  in  blue  and  gold,  the 
brilliant  coloring  of  the  peacock,  making  a  color- 
effect  rich  beyond  description. 

Unhappily,  nothing  had  been  said  concerning  the 
price,  and  that  finally  named  by  Leyland  seemed  to 
Whistler  quite  inadequate  ;  but  he  made  no  com- 
plaint and  went  on  with  the  work.  The  trouble 
came  when  Leyland  paid  in  pounds  instead  of 
in  guineas.  That  was  more  than  Whistler  could 
stand. 

All  professional  men  in  England  being  paid  in 
guineas,  he  would  not  permit  art  to  be  dealt  with  as 
merchandise.  He  felt,  therefore,  that  he  had  been 
robbed  of  his  shillings,  and  the  whole  affair,  which 
from  the  beginning  had  been  a  matter  of  pleasure 
rather  than  of  profit  with  him,  was  placed  on  a  com- 
mercial footing.  Considering  the  time  spent,  the 
surface  covered,  the  work  done,  the  price  fixed  by 
Leyland  was  quite  inadequate.  Then,  to  pay  in  scant 
9  129 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


pounds,  instead  of  full  guineas,  that  was,  in  truth, 
adding  insult  to  injury. 

The  work  was  not  quite  complete,  and  he  took  his 
revenge  by  painting  his  "patron"  in  the  guise  of  a 
peacock,  with  his  claws  on  what  might  be  mere  deco- 
ration, or,  as  any  one  might  fancy,  a  pile  of  guineas. 
The  likeness  was  not  immediately  perceptible,  but, 
with  a  hint,  the  world  soon  saw  it,  and  laughed. 

Leyland  has  been  dead  a  long  time,  and  the  house 
has  passed  from  his  family,  but  the  "  Peacock  Room" 
is  still  in  existence,  and  the  curious  visitor  is  occa- 
sionally, but  not  often,  admitted.  The  "Princess"  no 
longer  hangs  at  one  end,  for  long  ago  she  went  to 
Scotland,  and  will  soon  find  her  way  to  America; 
but  the  two  peacocks  are  at  the  other  end, — one  the 
personification  of  the  grasping  "patron"  and  the 
other  bearing  a  faint  though  perceptible  likeness  to 
the  defiant  painter  with  the  white  lock. 

The  shelves,  which  were  once  filled  with  the 
rarest  of  blue-and-white  china,  are  now  given  over 
to  books,  and  altogether  the  place  is  but  a  melan- 
choly reminder  of  former  beauty.  But  the  decora- 
tion is  in  good  condition,  and  could  the  walls  and 
ceilings  be  removed  and  the  "Princess"  restored,  the 
original  effect  would  be  reproduced. 

The  construction  of  the  room  was  not  Whistler's, 
so  he  worked  under  great  disadvantages  in  dealing 
with  architectural  features,  particularly  the  ceiling, 
which  he  did  not  like ;  so  the  room,  if  ever  removed, 
would  not  represent  his  ideas  of  proportion  and 

130 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


construction.  It  would  simply  show  how  he  made 
the  best  of  a  difficult  situation. 

The  architect  who  designed  the  room  and  looked 
upon  the  house  as  his  stepping-stone  to  fame,  when 
he  saw  the — to  him — desecration,  was  completely 
unbalanced,  went  insane,  and  died  not  long  after. 

If  opportunities  had  offered,  Whistler  would  have 
been  a  great  decorator,  for  such  was  his  suscepti- 
bility to  color  that  he  could  not  tolerate  discordant 
effects  about  him.  It  was  ever  his  habit  to  decorate 
his  studio,  his  house,  or  any  rooms  he  occupied  to 
suit  his  exceedingly  fastidious  taste. 

He  did  not  "  decorate"  in  the  sense  the  term  is 
accepted  nowadays.  In  truth,  the  casual  visitor  to 
his  studio  or  to  his  house  would  depart  under  the 
impression  there  was  no  decoration  at  all,  for  neither 
figures  nor  patterns  made  the  walls  attractive,  yet 
from  floor  to  ceiling  every  square  inch  was  a  matter 
of  extreme  solicitude.  He  would  mix  colors  and 
apply  them  with  his  own  hands  until  the  room  was 
in  harmony. 

Even  the  great  barn  of  an  attic  which  was  his 
studio  in  Paris  was  painted  by  him,  so  that  from  its 
dark — not  black — rich  oak  floor,  along  base-boards 
and  walls,  to  sloping  roof,  the  effect  was  such  as  he 
sought  as  an  environment  for  his  pictures, — a  brown, 
a  grayish  brown,  a  soft  and  singular  shade  of  brown, 
hard  to  describe,  difficult  to  see,  but  delightful  to 
feel  in  its  sober  and  retiring  neutrality, — and  that  is 
the  best  color,  the  best  tone,  against  which  to  hang 

131 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


Whistler's  paintings  in  any  general  exhibition,  for  it 
remains  quietly  and  unobtrusively  in  the  background, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  silvery  quality  in  it  gives 
it  life. 

When  London  laughed  at  his  "  Yellow  and 
White"  exhibition  of  etchings  it  did  not  know  that 
a  master  of  color  was  giving  an  object-lesson  in 
interior  decoration. 

Who  can  recall  without  a  feeling  of  restful  satis- 
faction the  delightful  reception-room  of  that  later 
home  in  Paris,  at  1 1  o  Rue  du  Bac  ?  So  simple  that, 
really,  there  was  not  a  conspicuous  feature  about  it, 
and  yet  every  detail  had  been  worked  out  with  as 
much  care  as  he  bestowed  on  a  painting. 

This  feature  of  Whistler's  art,  this  susceptibility 
to  color  and  line  in  surroundings  will  be  referred  to 
again  in  the  discussion  of  his  exquisite  color-sense. 

For  the  present  it  is  sufficient  to  point  out  that  he 
was  something  more  than  a  painter  of  easel  pictures  ; 
that  instinctively  he  was  akin  to  those  great  masters 
who  combined  their  efforts  with  those  of  the  archi- 
tect in  the  endeavor  to  produce  beautiful  results. 

A  sympathetic  writer  has  said  : 

"Although  he  was  in  no  way  a  spendthrift,  he  would  make 
every  sort  of  sacrifice  to  his  art.  Had  he  been  given  more 
opportunity,  there  seems  no  reason  to  doubt  that  he  would 
have  made  other  rooms  even  more  beautiful  than  the  famous 
«  Peacock'  dining-room.  But,  frankly,  the  public  did  not 
care  for  his  work  enough  to  buy  much  of  it  from  him  at  any- 
thing like  a  fair  price  ;  so  that  he  was  obliged  to  limit  him- 
self to  comparatively  small  surfaces,  easel  pictures,  over 

132 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


which  collectors  will  soon  begin  to  wrangle,  we  dare  say, 
now  that  the  clever  hand  which  created  them  can  work  no 
more,  and  the  big,  kind  heart  which  gave  this  man  the  cour- 
age to  fight  through  fifty  years  against  *  la  betise  humaine  is 
cold  and  still."  1 

In  showing  his  work  to  visitors  he  exercised  all 
the  reserve  and  discretion  of  the  Japanese,  who 
places  before  his  guests  but  one  kakemona  during 
that  most  formal  and  elaborate  of  social  festivities, 
the  "Tea  Ceremony,"  or  who,  under  pressure  of  re- 
peated requests,  takes  from  its  little  box  and  unfolds 
from  its  many  silken  wrappings  one,  just  one,  of  his 
precious  bits  of  porcelain.  No  more  on  the  same 
day,  lest  the  surfeited  guests  fail  in  appreciation. 

If  in  his  studio,  Whistler  would  first  turn  to  the 
wall  every  picture  and  arrange  the  few  pieces  of  fur- 
niture so  that  nothing  should  attract  the  vagrant  eye, 
then  he  would  place  the  one  picture  he  wished  seen 
on  the  easel  in  the  best  of  light,  without,  however, 
letting  it  be  seen  until  frame  and  glass  were  care- 
fully wiped,  when,  stepping  back  on  a  line  with  his 
visitor,  he,  too,  would  enjoy  his  work  as  if  he  saw  it 
for  the  first  time.  He  would  never  exhibit  anything 
he  was  tired  of,  and  he  never  tired  of  anything  he 
exhibited.  This  appreciation  of  his  own  work,  his 
enthusiasm  over  what  he  had  done,  was  often  mis- 
understood by  people  accustomed  to  the  false  mod- 
esty of  artists  who  stand  dumb  while  others  vainly 


1  Harper1  s  Weekly,  August  I,  1903. 
133 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


strive  to  see  in  their  work  the  beauties  which  they 
of  all  people  can  best  make  known. 

If  time  permitted  he  might  bring  forth  two,  or 
even  three,  pictures,  but  rarely  more,  and  always 
each  by  itself.  If  some  visitor,  presuming  on  his 
good  nature, — and  he  was  indulgent  in  the  extreme 
to  those  he  liked, — insisted  on  placing  the  pictures 
side  by  side  for  comparison,  as  is  the  custom  in 
shops,  he  was  as  uneasy  and  unhappy  as  would  be 
a  poet  if  several  persons  insisted  on  reading  aloud 
before  him  several  of  his  poems  at  the  same  time, — 
for  what  is  a  picture  but  a  poem,  mute  to  the  ear 
but  clarion-voiced  to  the  eye  ? 

In  public  exhibitions  of  his  works  he  had  the  same 
sense  of  the  eternal  fitness  of  things. 

First  of  all,  the  room  must  be  properly  lighted, 
and  Whistler's  paintings  require  a  soft  light.  In  his 
studio  the  skylight  was  well  arranged  with  shades, 
so  he  could  keep  the  light  soft  and  constant ;  and 
frequently  he  would  draw  the  shades  so  as  to  make 
the  room  quite  dark,  and  then  view  portrait  and 
sitter  as  they  loomed  up  in  shadow. 

"Some  students  planned  to  call  on  him  one  New  Year's 
morning.  A  friendly  student,  not  at  all  sure  that  Whistler 
would  like  it,  gave  him  a  little  tip  as  to  the  surprise  party. 

"  'Tell  them  that  I  never  receive  callers,'  he  exclaimed, 
excitedly.  The  student  explained  that  he  wasn't  supposed 
to  know  anything  about  it. 

"  'Are  you  sure  they  mean  well  ?'  he  inquired,  anxiously. 
And  on  being  reassured,  'Well,  tell  them  I  never  receive 
visitors  in  the  morning. ' 

134 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


"  The  students  called  in  the  afternoon,  and  found  awaiting 
them  a  most  genial  and  delightful  host.  He  told  stories  and 
showed  them  his  palettes  to  prove  that  he  practised  what  he 
preached,  and  pictures  and  sketches  were  exhibited  to  them 
never  seen  by  the  public,  among  the  surprising  ones  being 
some  allegorical  studies.  He  served  them  with  champagne 
and  fruits  and  cakes,  and  was  most  solicitous  as  to  their  en- 
joyment. One  of  them  asked  him  how  he  arranged  his  sub- 
jects so  as  to  produce  the  low  tone  noted  in  his  pictures. 
He  posed  a  visitor,  pulled  over  the  shades  so  as  to  shut  out 
all  light,  save  from  one  window,  and  there  before  them  was 
a  living  Whistler  '  arrangement'  ready  to  recede  behind  a 
frame,  as  he  says  all  portraits  should  do." 

It  is  a  pity  to  ever  subject  his  pictures  to  the  try- 
ing light  of  the  usual  gallery,  and  it  is  a  still  greater 
pity  to  exhibit  them  at  night  in  competition  with 
foot-lights  and  foyer.  His  work  should  not  be  made 
the  attraction  for  either  a  "  five-o'clock  tea"  or  a 
dress  rehearsal.  People  who  will  not  go  during  the 
day  are  not  worth  inviting. 

The  fact  that  people  are  content  to  view  the  best 
paintings  of  all  time  by  artificial  light,  and  even 
profess  to  find  a  " softness"  and  "charm"  lacking  by 
day,  is  but  additional  evidence  of  that  want  of  sus- 
ceptibility and  fine  feeling  which  characterizes  the 
modern  world,  artists  and  laymen  alike.  For  no 
picture  that  was  painted  by  daylight  should  be  seen 
at  night,  if  all  its  beauties  are  to  be  felt. 

A  room  for  the  exhibition  of  his  pictures  should 
be  of  precisely  the  right  tone,  and  this  is  a  matter 
of  no  little  difficulty. 

i35 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


When  president  of  the  Society  of  British  Artists, 
in  1886,  his  arrangement  of  the  rooms  was  criticised 
as  being  "  tentative,"  because  he  had  left  the  bat- 
tens on  the  walls  ;  whereupon  he  wrote  that  in  the 
engineering  of  the  light  and  the  treatment  of  the 
walls  and  the  arrangement  of  the  draperies  every- 
thing was  intentional  ;  that  the  battens  were  meant 
to  remain,  "not  only  for  their  use,  but  as  bringing 
parallel  lines  into  play  that  subdivide  charmingly  the 
lower  portions  of  the  walls  and  add  to  their  light 
appearance ;  that  the  whole  combination  is  com- 
plete." 

There  is  a  hint  to  all  managers  of  exhibitions. 

To  summarize  the  foregoing  suggestions  : 

The  tone  of  the  walls  should  be  such  as  to  keep 
them  in  the  background. 

The  monotonous  blankness  of  the  walls  may  be 
broken  by  unobtrusive  lines,  not  arbitrarily  for  effect, 
but  justifiably  for  use  and  effect 

Only  such  draperies  should  be  used  as  are  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  reduce  vacancies  or  to  soften 
harsh  lines,  and  these  should  lose  themselves  in  the 
tone  of  the  room. 

Floor  should  be  low  in  tone,  the  rich,  dark  brown 
of  old  oak  keeping  its  place  under  foot  best  of 
all. 

If  the  room  is  large  and  a  few  chairs  and  benches 
are  admitted,  they  should  be  of  wood,  plain  and  for 
service  alone,  as  becomes  a  room  that  is  arranged 
but  for  one  purpose, — namely,  the  exhibition  of  cer- 

136 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


tain  pictures, — and  they  should  be  painted  or  stained 
in  tone  to  correspond  with  the  room. 

The  light  should  be  under  absolute  control,  and 
kept  quite  soft,  diffused,  and  constant  throughout  the 
day. 

The  room  should  be  closed  at  night,  or  at  least 
the  people  fully  warned  by  notices  in  catalogue  and 
elsewhere  that  if  they  have  any  real  desire  to  see 
and  understand  the  pictures  they  will  come  during 
the  day. 

The  pictures  should  be  well  spaced,  so  that  each 
may,  to  a  certain  degree,  be  studied  by  itself,  for 
each  is  as  complete  a  work  as  a  piece  of  music. 

In  short,  in  an  exhibition  of  pictures,  or  of  any- 
thing else,  everything  should  be  subordinated  to  the 
things  exhibited  ;  nothing  should  be  permitted  to 
obtrude  upon  the  attention  to  their  disadvantage  ; 
the  work  of  the  decorator  and  furnisher  on  such  an 
occasion  is  perfect  when  it  is  unnoticed. 

For  black-and-whites,  experiments  in  color  may 
be  made,  but  for  paintings  which  are  compositions 
in  color  the  background  should  be  neutral, — silent 
like  the  background  of  music. 

As  every  one  knows,  green  and  red,  side  by  side, 
accentuate  and  help  each  other  ;  therefore,  pictures 
in  which  the  prevailing  tone  is  green  are  helped  by 
a  red  or  crimson  background,  while  pictures  in  which 
the  prevailing  tone  is  red  are  helped  by  a  green  back- 
ground. 

The  foregoing  is  elementary  and  a  matter  of 
common  observation,  and  the  walls  of  art  galleries 

i37 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


and  exhibitions  are  frequently  covered  with  either  a 
shade  of  green  or  a  shade  of  crimson  ;  but  in  placing 
pictures  no  discrimination  is  exercised, — landscapes 
and  marines  in  which  green  predominates  are  placed 
side  by  side  with  portraits  and  interiors  in  which  red 
frequently  predominates  on  the  same  green  or  red 
background,  to  the  advantage  of  one  set  of  pictures 
and  the  detriment  of  the  other. 

So  far  as  color-effect  is  concerned,  the  pictures 
themselves  go  very  well  side  by  side,  the  red  of 
the  life  pieces  helping  the  green  of  the  nature 
pieces,  and  vice  versa ;  but  if  the  background  is 
permitted  to  assert  itself,  if  the  pictures  are  spaced 
on  the  wall,  any  background  which  accentuates  the 
one  class  does  so  at  the  expense  of  the  other. 

If  pictures  in  which  the  prevailing  tone  is  green 
are  to  be  placed  on  the  same  wall  with  pictures  in 
which  red  predominates,  the  background  should  be 
neither  red  nor  green,  but,  theoretically,  a  gray, 
which  is  neutral  and  helps  all  colors  in  contrast ; 
practically,  however,  a  grayish  hue  of  brown,  be- 
cause pure  gray  requires  a  greater  expanse  of  wall 
between  each  picture  than  the  exigencies  of  an 
exhibition  or  of  a  typical  picture  gallery  permit, 
while  the  element  of  brown  permits  the  wall  to 
assert  itself  a  little  more  positively  between  the 
frames,  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  quality  of  neu- 
trality is  almost  as  well  preserved. 

The  stronger  the  tone  of  the  background  the 
nearer  together  pictures  may  be  placed  ;  the  weaker 
and  more  neutral  the  background  the  wider  the 

138 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


spacing  must  be, — a  pure  gray  requiring  the  widest 
spacing  of  all  backgrounds,  a  deep  crimson  the 
narrowest.  In  other  words,  it  requires  a  wide  ex- 
panse of  gray  to  support  a  little  color,  while  a  very 
little  crimson  will  carry  a  very  large  expanse  of 
color  in  the  way  of  gilt  frames  and  strong  landscapes 
and  marines. 

Wide  frames,  whether  of  gold  or  dark  wood, 
enable  green  walls  to  carry  green  pictures  and  red 
walls  to  carry  red  pictures  without  the  pictures  suf- 
fering so  much  ;  the  frames  intervene,  and  the  imme- 
diate contrast  is  between  canvas  and  frame  instead 
of  canvas  and  wall.  But  the  secondary  contrast  is 
there  and  is  felt  precisely  in  proportion  to  the  extent 
of  the  spacing  between  the  pictures,  and  the  pict- 
ures suffer  accordingly. 


139 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


VI 

The  Ruskin  Suit — His  Attitude  towards  the  World 
and  towards  Art — "The  Gentle  Art  of  Making 
Enemies" — Critics  and  Criticism. 

In  1877  Ruskin,  passing  through  the  Grosvenor 
Gallery,  caught  sight  of  something  the  like  of  which 
he  had  never  seen  in  the  world  of  art.  It  was  the 
"  Nocturne,  Black  and  Gold.  The  Falling  Rocket," 
a  faithful  transcript  of  the  painter's  impression  of  a 
night-scene  in  Cremorne  Gardens.  But  Ruskin  cared 
less  for  the  subtle  glories  of  night  than  for  the  more 
garish  beauties  of  the  day,  and  still  less  for  the  sights 
and  sounds  of  Cremorne  Gardens,  and  neither  he  nor 
any  one  else  in  either  modern  or  ancient  world  knew 
anything  at  all  about  the  painting  of  night  as  Whist- 
ler painted  it.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  he 
was  startled,  for  the  picture  seemed  to  violate  all 
those  canons  of  art  which  he  had  laid  down  in  Eng- 
lish the  beauty  of  which  more  than  condones  his 
every  error,  and  in  the  impulse  of  the  moment  he 
wrote  in  a  number  of  Fors  Clavigera  : 

"For  Mr.  Whistler's  own  sake,  no  less  than  for 
the  protection  of  the  purchaser,  Sir  Coutts  Lindsay 
ought  not  to  have  admitted  works  into  the  gallery  in 
which  the  ill-educated  conceit  of  the  artist  so  nearly 

140 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


approached  the  aspect  of  wilful  imposture.  I  have 
seen  and  heard  much  of  cockney  impudence  before 
now,  but  never  expected  to  hear  a  coxcomb  ask  two 
hundred  guineas  for  flinging  a  pot  of  paint  in  the 
public's  face." 

By  way  of  extenuation,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  this  was  written  off-hand,  at  a  time  when  Ruskin 
was  saying  so  many  extravagant  things,  though  with 
them  so  many  profoundly  true  things,  that  no  one 
quite  understood  him,  and  many  thought  him  not 
quite  sound  mentally.  The  habit  of  sweeping  gen- 
eralizations, of  extravagant  appreciations  and  de- 
preciations had  grown  apace  since  the  publication 
of  the  first  volume  of  "Modern  Painters,"  nearly 
forty  years  before,  and  he  invariably  yielded  to  the 
impression  or  the  prejudice  of  the  moment. 

If  Ruskin,  in  estimating  Whistler,  had  paused  but 
a  moment  and  recalled  just  a  paragraph  from  the 
preface  to  the  second  edition  of  the  first  volume  of 
"  Modern  Painters"  he  would  have  been  more  toler- 
ant, for  he  there  said  : 

' '  All  that  is  highest  in  art,  all  that  is  creative  and  im- 
aginative, is  formed  and  created  by  every  great  master  for 
himself,  and  cannot  be  repeated  or  imitated  by  others.  We 
judge  of  the  excellence  of  a  rising  writer,  not  so  much  by 
the  resemblance  of  his  works  to  what  has  been  done  before 
as  by  their  difference  from  it  ;  and  while  we  advise  him,  in 
the  first  trials  of  strength,  to  set  certain  models  before  him, 
with  respect  to  inferior  points, — one  for  versification,  another 

141 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


for  arrangement,  another  for  treatment, — we  yet  admit  not 
his  greatness  until  he  has  broken  away  from  all  his  models 
and  struck  forth  versification,  arrangement,  and  treatment  of 
his  own." 

And  was  not  Ruskin  himself  the  life-long  apolo- 
gist for  a  most  original  and  extraordinary  genius, — 
a  man  who  to  his  last  days  was  as  little  understood 
as  Whistler? 

Here  are  some  things  that  were  said  of  Turner  as 
late  as  1842,  when  he  was  doing  some  of  his  best 
work  : 

*'  The  '  Dogano'  {sic)  and  '  Campo  Santo'  have  a  glorious 
ensejnble,  and  are  produced  by  wonderful  art,  but  they  mean 
nothing.  They  are  produced  as  if  by  throwing  handfuls  of 
white  and  blue  and  red  at  the  canvas,  letting  what  chanced 
to  stick,  stick,  and  then  shadowing  in  some  forms  to  make 
the  appearance  of  a  picture  ;  and  yet  there  is  a  fine  harmony 
in  the  highest  range  of  color  to  please  the  sense  of  vision. 
We  admire  and  we  lament  to  see  such  genius  so  employed. 
But  'Farther  on  you  may  fare  worse.'  No.  182  is  a  snow- 
storm of  most  unintelligible  character, — the  snow-storm  of  a 
confused  dream,  with  a  steamboat  '  making  signals,'  and  (ap- 
parently, like  the  painter  who  was  in  it)  '  going  by  the  head' 
(lead  ?).  Neither  by  land  nor  water  was  such  a  scene  ever 
witnessed.  And  of  338,  'Burial  at  Sea,'  though  there  is  a 
striking  effect,  still  the  whole  is  so  idealized  and  removed 
from  truth  that,  instead  of  the  feeling  it  ought  to  effect,  it 
only  excites  ridicule.  And  No.  353  caps  all  for  absurdity, 
without  even  any  of  the  redeeming  qualities  of  the  rest.  It 
represents  Bonaparte — facetiously  described  as  the  '  Exile 
and  the  rock-limpet' — standing  on  the  sea-shore  at  St.  Helena 
.  .  .  the  whole  thing  is  so  truly  ludicrous,"  etc.1 


1  Library  Gazette,  May  14,  1842,  p.  331. 
142 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


Another  writer  says  : 

"This  gentleman  has  on  former  occasions  chosen  to  paint 
with  cream,  or  chocolate,  yolk  of  egg,  or  currant-jelly, — 
there  he  uses  his  whole  array  of  kitchen-stuff.  .  .  .  We  cannot 
fancy  the  state  of  eye  which  will  permit  any  one  cognizant  of 
art  to  treat  these  rhapsodies  as  Lord  Byron  treated  '  Christa- 
bel ;'  neither  can  we  believe  in  any  future  revolution  which 
shall  bring  the  world  round  to  the  opinion  of  the  worshipper, 
if  worshippers  such  frenzies  still  possess."1 

In  reply  to  these  and  similar  criticisms  Ruskin 
said  : 2 

"There  is  nothing  so  high  in  art  but  that  a  scurrile  jest 
can  reach  it ;  and  often  the  greater  the  work  the  easier  it 
is  to  turn  it  into  ridicule.  To  appreciate  the  science  of 
Turner's  color  would  require  the  study  of  a  life,  but  to  laugh 
at  it  requires  little  more  than  the  knowledge  that  yolk  of  egg 
is  yellow  and  spinach  green, — a  fund  of  critical  information 
on  which  the  remarks  of  most  of  our  leading  periodicals  have 
been  of  late  years  exclusively  based.  We  shall,  however, 
in  spite  of  the  sulphur-and-treacle  criticisms  of  our  Scotch 
connoisseurs  and  the  eggs  and  the  spinach  of  our  English 
ones,  endeavor  to  test  the  works  of  this  great  colorist  by  a 
knowledge  of  nature  somewhat  more  extensive  than  is  to  be 
gained  by  an  acquaintance,  however  familiar,  with  the 
apothecary's  shop  or  the  dinner-table." 

There  is  Ruskin  in  arms  on  the  other  side, — it 
making  all  the  difference  in  the  world  which  ox  is 
gored. 


1  Athenczum,  May  14,  1842,  p.  433. 

2  See  opening  paragraph  of  Chapter  II.  of  the  first  and 
second  editions  of  the  first  volume  of  ' '  Modern  Painters. ' ' 

143 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


What  an  interesting  chapter  in  the  history  of 
appreciation  it  all  makes.  Here  we  have  the  critics 
fulminating  against  Turner  in  "  egg  and  spinach" 
terms  and  Ruskin  fulminating  against  the  critics  in 
"pot  and  kettle"  terms.  A  few  years  later  we  have 
Ruskin  fulminating  against  Whistler  in  the  same  old 
terms  ;  but  Whistler  greatly  improved  the  language 
of  vituperation  by  introducing  humor,  and  answered 
with  words  that  bit  like  acid  and  epigrams  pointed 
like  needles — the  etcher  in  controversy. 

"  Produced  as  if  by  throwing  handfuls  of  white 
and  blue  and  red  at  the  canvas,"  said  the  critic  of 
Turner.  "  Flinging  a  pot  of  paint  in  the  public's 
face,"  said  Ruskin  of  Whistler.  Beyond  this,  criti- 
cism begins  to  be  personal. 

And  Whistler  drew  the  line  on  the  "pot  and 
kettle"  stage  and  brought  suit  for  libel. 

The  case  was  heard  in  November,  1878,  before 
Baron  Huddleston  and  a  special  jury. 

The  cross-examination  of  Whistler  by  the  at- 
torney-general, who  appeared  for  the  defendant, 
was  one  of  the  features  of  the  case,  and  brought 
out  many  of  the  artist's  views  concerning  art  and 
art  critics. 

It  is  said  that  during  the  trial  one  of  Whistler's 
counsel  was  holding  up  the  nocturne  in  controversy 
before  the  jury,  when  one  of  the  counsel  on  the 
other  side  called  out : 

"You  are  holding  that  upside  down." 

"No,  I'm  not." 

"  I  tell  you,  you  are." 

144 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


"  How  do  you  know  which  is  the  top  and  which 
is  the  bottom  ?" 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know  ;  only  when  I  saw  it  hanging 
in  the  Grosvenor  Gallery  it  was  the  other  side 
up." 

Whereupon — out  of  deference  to  precedent — the 
nocturne  was  reversed. 

When  Whistler  was  asked  whether  the  nocturne 
represented  a  view  of  Cremorne,  he  answered  : 

"If  it  were  called  a  view  of  Cremorne,  it  would 
certainly  bring  about  nothing  but  disappointment 
on  the  part  of  the  beholders.  It  is  an  artistic 
arrangement." 

And  again,  when  asked  whether  a  certain  nocturne 
in  blue  and  silver  was  a  "correct"  representation  of 
Battersea  Bridge,  he  replied  : 

"I  did  not  intend  it  to  be  a  'correct'  portrait  of 
the  bridge.  It  is  only  a  moonlight  scene,  and  the 
pier  in  the  centre  of  the  picture  may  not  be  like  the 
piers  at  Battersea  Bridge  as  you  know  them  in  broad 
daylight.  As  to  what  the  picture  represents,  that 
depends  upon  who  looks  at  it.  To  some  it  may 
represent  all  that  is  intended  ;  to  others  it  may  rep- 
resent nothing." 

"The  prevailing  color  is  blue?" 

"Perhaps." 

"Are  these  figures  on  the  top  of  the  bridge  in- 
tended for  people?" 

"They  are  just  what  you  like." 
"Is  that  a  barge  beneath?" 

"Yes.    I  am  very  much  encouraged  at  your 
145 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


perceiving  that.  My  whole  scheme  was  only  to  bring 
about  a  certain  harmony  of  color." 

Mr.  Ruskin  did  not  appear,  but  others  testified  in 
his  behalf. 

Edward  Burne-Jones  admitted  the  picture  had 
fine  color,  but  found  absolutely  no  detail  and  com- 
position. It  was  "  bewildering  in  form,"  and  "one 
of  the  thousand  failures  to  paint  night,"  and  "not 
worth  two  hundred  guineas." 

All  of  which  opinions  have  been  reversed  by  time, 
— even  to  the  value,  which  quintupled  many  years 
ago. 

Mr.  Frith — of  whose  art  both  Burne-Jones  and 
Ruskin  probably  had  opinions  that  could  not  be 
expressed  in  temperate  language — presented  his 
credentials  as  the  author  of  the  "  Railway  Station," 
"Derby  Day,"  and  the  "Rakes  Progress,"  and 
testified  that  Whistler's  pictures  were  "  not  serious 
works  of  art."  But,  then,  he  confessed  he  had  not 
been  invited  to  exhibit  at  the  Grosvenor  Gallery, 
and,  as  every  one  knows,  what  is  considered  art  in 
one  exhibition  may  not  be  so  considered  in  another. 

And  Tom  Taylor,  of  the  Times, — well,  for  Tom 
Taylor's  testimony  and  opinions  one  must  go  to  the 
"  Gentle  Art."  It  is  his  one  sure  niche  in  the  temple 
of  fame. 

In  addressing  the  jury,  the  attorney-general  said 
"he  did  not  know  when  so  much  amusement  had 
been  offered  to  the  British  public  as  by  Mr.  Whist- 
ler's pictures." 

146 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 

The  verdict  was  for  the  plaintiff,  and  the  damages 
assessed  at  one  farthing  ;  which  coin  Whistler  wore 
on  his  chain  long  afterwards. 

The  costs  assessed  against  Ruskin  amounted  to 
,£386  1 2s.  4d.,  and  were  paid  by  public  subscription, 
one  hundred  and  twenty  persons  contributing. 

Concerning  this  suit,  Ruskin  said,  "I  am  blamed 
by  my  prudent  acquaintances  for  being  too  personal ; 
but,  truly,  I  find  vaguely  objurgatory  language  gen- 
erally a  mere  form  of  what  Plato  calls  'shadow- 
fighting.'  "  And  long  after,  when  a  friend  asked 
him  about  the  case,  he  said,  "  I  am  afraid  of  a  libel 
action  if  I  open  my  mouth  ;  and  if  I  can't  say  what 
I  like  about  a  person,  I  prefer  to  say  nothing  at  all."  1 

Even  Ruskin  could  not  say  what  he  liked  about 
any  one,  though  every  one,  including  the  victim, 
might  like  the  manner  of  his  saying  it.  Still,  it 
will  ever  remain  a  matter  of  wonder  how  Whistler 
induced  an  English  jury,  who  could  not  possibly 
understand  him,  to  give  him  a  nominal  verdict  and 
saddle  the  costs  upon  Ruskin,  who  was  something 
of  a  popular  idol. 

Whistler's  lawyers  must  have  been  cleverer  than 
those  of  the  other  side.  The  attorney-general  prob- 
ably proved,  as  his  speech  indicates,  a  clumsy  de- 
fender in  a  case  involving  nice  questions  of  art. 

Be  it  said  to  the  credit  of  Whistler's  sagacity, 
he  always  employed  the  best  lawyers  available.  He 


1  John  Ruskin,  by  Spielmann,  p.  34. 
147 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 

once  said,  "Poor  lawyers,  like  poor  paintings,  are 
dear  at  any  price." 

While  Whistler  had  practised  the  gentle  art  of 
making  enemies  from  the  beginning  of  his  career, 
his  suit  against  Ruskin  was,  so  to  speak,  his  first 
public  appearance,  and  he  threw  his  dart  at  a  shining 
mark. 

What  his  real  feelings  towards  Ruskin  were  no 
man  can  say, — for  towards  the  public  and  his  critics 
he  was  one  man,  towards  his  art  he  was  quite 
another. 

To  the  world  he  seemed  the  incarnation  of  vanity 
and  conceit ;  to  the  few  whose  privilege  it  was  to  see 
him  at  work  he  appeared,  and  was,  the  embodiment 
of  sincerity  and  earnestness,  of  simplicity  to  the 
verge  of  diffidence. 

It  is  impossible  to  conceive  two  personalities  so  dif- 
ferent as  Whistler  at  work  and  Whistler  at  play,  and 
all  his  controversies  were  play  to  him,  the  amuse- 
ment of  his  hours  of  relaxation. 

He  sued  Ruskin,  not  because  his  status  before  art 
was  in  any  wise  affected,  but  because  his  status  be- 
fore the  public  was  assailed  ;  not  because  he  cared 
the  snap  of  his  finger  for  any  adverse  opinion  con- 
cerning his  pictures,  but  because  he  felt  that  he  had 
a  certain  position,  pose  one  might  say,  to  maintain, 
and  because  it  amused  him  to  sue  one  who  was  con- 
sidered so  infallible  ;  and  he,  no  doubt,  felt  reason- 

148 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


ably  sure  he  would  be  more  than  recompensed  by 
the  solemn  testimony  of  opposing  witnesses. 

Whistler  has  been  so  often  charged  with  being  a 
poser  that  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  he  really  must 
have  seemed  so. 

He  was  a  poser  in  the  sense  already  indicated, 
— namely,  he  was  one  man  before  the  public  and 
another  at  work.  In  this  sense  every  man  clever 
enough  to  forget  himself  at  times  is  something  of  a 
poser,  for  only  the  stupid  who  can  talk  nothing  but 
"shop,"  wherever  they  are,  are  the  same  day  in  and 
day  out. 

Most  men  are  able  to  leave  their  work  behind 
and  adopt  a  role  more  or  less  artificial  in  social  in- 
tercourse. The  brilliant  few  who  make  society  pos- 
sess this  faculty  in  an  eminent  degree. 

The  objection  that  social  England  has  against  the 
shopkeeper  is,  no  doubt,  based  upon  many  sad  ex- 
periences that  the  shopkeeper  brings  his  shop  with 
him  to  dinner,  and  will  not,  or  cannot,  pose  to  the 
extent  of  forgetting  his  material  concerns  in  the 
presence  of  the  frivolous. 

The  preacher,  the  politician,  the  lawyer,  the  sol- 
dier may  introduce  a  little  "shop"  in  general  con- 
versation, for  these  occupations  are  supposed  to  have 
a  more  general  interest ;  but  the  butcher,  the  baker, 
and  the  candlestick-maker  cannot.  But  preacher, 
politician,  lawyer,  and  soldier  make  the  better 
guests  if  they  pose  a  little  and  forget,  for  the  time 
being,  their  occupations. 

149 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


Convictions  must  be  introduced  sparingly  in  social 
intercourse  ;  a  very  few  go  a  great  way. 

Why  not  adopt  and  duly  post  some  such  salutary 
rule  as  this  ?  In  social  intercourse  the  utterance  of 
one's  profound  convictions  shall  bear  the  same  ratio 
to  one's  total  utterances  on  any  given  occasion  that 
the  speaker  bears  to  the  number  present  and  partici- 
pating in  the  conversation.  That  is  to  say,  if  the 
conversation  is  between  two  alone,  half  that  either 
says  may  be  his  convictions,  the  other  half  a  polite, 
though  futile,  endeavor  to  understand  the  other's 
convictions.  If  at  a  table  of  twelve,  about  a  twelfth 
of  one's  real  thoughts  are  permissible,  and  all  that, 
in  justice  to  others,  should  be  attempted. 

But,  then,  conversation  is  a  lost  art.  An  Athenian 
could  talk  better  about  everything  than  a  modern 
can  talk  about  anything.  Cast  a  subject,  a  thought, 
so  much  as  a  suggestion,  into  a  knot  of  Greeks,  and 
in  a  trice,  like  dogs  over  a  bone,  they  would  be 
wrestling  with  it,  and  the  less  they  knew  about  it  the 
brighter  the  discussion. 

Knowledge  is  the  last  refuge  of  the  stupid.  Facts 
are  the  sinkers  of  talk.  Ideas  are  the  flash-lights  of 
the  imagination  ;  and  conversation  depends  not  upon 
knowledge  but  upon  ideas.  One  who  knows  noth- 
ing of  a  subject  may  have  more  ideas  concerning  it 
than  one  who  knows  all  about.  Women  are  fre- 
quently better  conversers  than  men,  because  less 
hampered  by  facts. 

Knowledge  is  a  heavy  weight  for  conversation  to 
carry.    But  of  all  the  bores  who  find  their  way  to 

150 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


the  dinner-table  the  specialist  in  knowledge  is  the 
most  hopeless.  The  man  who  knows  everything  about 
something  is  at  the  stupid  end  ;  the  man  who  knows 
something  about  everything  at  the  brilliant,  with  a 
place  at  his  right  hand  for  the  woman  who  knows 
nothing  about  anything. 

Whistler  was  of  the  choice  few  who  would  never 
speak  seriously  of  his  serious  pursuits  in  general 
conversation.  At  those  very  moments  when  he 
seemed  to  be  saying  most  about  art  and  artists  he 
was  in  reality  saying  least  of  what  he  really  thought 
When  he  talked  most  of  himself  he  said  nothing 
that  he  really  felt.  It  was  almost  impossible  to  draw 
from  him  a  serious  opinion  concerning  a  picture  or 
a  painter.  Though  he  might  rail  by  the  hour  against 
this  man  or  that,  if  the  mood  seized  him,  it  all  meant 
nothing. 

In  his  studio,  when  at  work,  opinions  and  apprecia- 
tions worth  remembering  would  drop  from  his  lips ; 
but  he  rarely  committed  himself ;  not  because  his 
convictions  were  not  clear,  but  because  he  seldom 
thought  it  worth  while. 

Once  he  was  dining  with  quite  a  distinguished 
company.  The  conversation — possibly  as  tribute  to 
the  presence  of  so  noted  an  artist — turned  upon  art, 
and  finally  upon  a  notorious  picture,  called  "  Nana," 
of  a  naked  woman  on  a  couch,  that  was  quite  a  sen- 
sation in  London.    It  has  been  seen  on  this  side. 

Loud  were  the  expressions  of  approval.  Whistler 
remained  silent. 

151 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


"What  do  you  think  of  'Nana,'  Mr.  Whistler?"  asked 
the  distinguished  lady  at  his  right. 

"  Is  it  not  wonderful  ? — so  life-like,"  exclaimed  the  distin- 
guished lady  at  his  left. 

But  Whistler,  apparently  spellbound  by  the  bird  before 
him,  was  silent. 

4 '  But,  Mr.  Whistler,  you  have  not  told  us  what  you  think 
about  '  Nana, '  ' '  said  the  distinguished  lady  opposite. 

At  bay  at  last,  he  said  : 

"Really,  madam,  you  know,  it  is  quite — presumptious — - 
quite,  for  one  who — who  is  simply,  as  one  might  say,  a 
painter,  and  therefore — you  know — not  entitled  to  opinions 
— to  express  himself  in  the  presence  of  so — so  many  distin- 
guished connoisseurs  ;  but — since  you  demand  my  opinion — 
as  a  highwayman  would  a  purse — I  yield  to  superior  strength 
and  say — with  all  deference — that  '  Nana'  is — trash. ' 1 

"Oh  !" 

"Oh,  Mr.  Whistler." 
"  But  have  you  seen  it  ?' ' 
"No." 

"  Then,  how  can  you  say  it  is  trash  ?" 
' 1  It  must  be — it — is  so — popular. ' ' 
"  Will  you  go  to  see  it  ?" 
' '  That  is  not  necessary. ' ' 

"  But  I  want  you  to  go  with  me  to-morrow  to  see  '  Nana.'  " 
And  the  charming  lady  on  his  right  insisted  so  imperiously 
that  he  should  go  with  her  and  several  of  the  company  who 
wished  to  be  of  the  party,  that  he  yielded,  saying,  however  : 

"  On  one  condition." 

"What  is  it  ?" 

•  *  That  you  will  go  with  me  afterward,  to  the  National  Gal- 
lery and  see  some  pictures  I  am  sure  you  have  never  seen." 
"  Some  new  ones  ?" 
"  To  you — yes." 

It  was  agreed  ;  and  the  following  day  Whistler  with  several 
of  the  party  paid  each  a  shilling  to  see  "  Nana"  stretched  at 

152 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


ease  under  a  strong  light  at  the  far  end  of  a  dark  room.  It 
might  have  been  a  painting  or  ' '  Nana' '  herself,  the  realism 
was  so  gross. 

All  save  Whistler  were  in  raptures  over  the  wondrous 
thing.    He  was  silent. 

Then  they  went  to  the  National  Gallery,  and  he  took  them 
before  one  great  portrait  after  another. 

"  But  we  have  seen  these  before,"  chorused  the  voices. 

"  Impossible  !"  exclaimed  Whistler. 

"  Oh,  yes,  many  times,"  sang  the  voices. 

"  But  you  do  not  like  them  ;  you  detest  them." 

"  Oh,  no  !  no  !  no  !" 

"But  they  are  not  at  all  like  'Nana'  ;  they  haven't 
'Nana's'  wonderful  flesh-tones,  'Nana's'  beautiful  skin; 
are  not  so  life-like  as  '  Nana,'  and  beside  'Nana'  you  must 
consider  them  as  poor,  wretched  daubs. ' ' 

And  so  he  took  them  from  one  masterpiece  to  another, 
repeating  before  each  one  their  raptures  over  "Nana"  until 
they  were  silent.    Then  he  said  : 

"I  have  shown  you  some  pictures  that  are  considered 
good  by  those  whose  opinions  are  precious,  and  you  have 
not  found  in  one  a  single  characteristic  that  you  admired  in 
'Nana,'  and  you  yourselves  would  not  admit  her  to  this 
glorious  company  ;  therefore,  again  I  say,  '  Nana'  is — 
trash." 

In  the  sense,  therefore,  that  he  presented  a  care- 
less, trivial,  or  cynical  side  to  the  public  and  a 
serious  side  to  his  art,  Whistler  was  a  poser,  and 
during  his  idle  hours  he  had  the  habit  of  amusing 
himself  at  the  expense  of  any  one  who  crossed  his 
path.  And  why  not?  Did  not  the  world  try  so 
hard  to  amuse  itself  at  his  expense?  Were  his 
feelings  spared  ?  Was  aught  of  ridicule  or  insult 
that  human  ingenuity  could  devise  withheld  ? 

i53 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


But  his  opponents  were  so  clumsy  that,  save  as  he 
himself  preserved  their  crude  repartees,  only  his  epi- 
grammatic utterances  are  remembered  ;  and  therefore 
he  has  all  the  blame  for  the  controversies,  while  the 
truth  is  that,  considering  the  flood  of  opprobrium 
poured  out  upon  him  in  print  and  in  speech,  he  said 
very  little,  took  but  occasional  notice  of  his  assailants. 
All  he  said  fills  but  a  portion  of  a  small  book, — the 
"Gentle  Art," — while  his  opponents  have  the  bal- 
ance ;  and  if  all  adverse  personal  comments  of  a  des- 
picable nature  were  gathered  together  from  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic,  they  would  make  up  many 
closely-printed  volumes. 

For  a  man  who  could  write  so  well,  Whistler  ex- 
ercised great  restraint  in  writing  so  little,  but — that 
little  ! 

And  yet  it  is  a  pity,  from  one  point  of  view,  that 
he  wrote  at  all ;  his  art  did  not  need  it,  and  in  the 
way  of  general  estimation  and  recognition  suffers 
not  a  little  on  account  of  it. 

For  twenty-odd  years  the  public  has  been  amused, 
startled,  and  irritated  by  the  letters  and  utterances 
which  make  up  "The  Gentle  Art  of  Making  Ene- 
mies," and  it  will  be  many  a  long  day  before  they 
are  so  far  forgotten  that  Whistler's  art  will  be  judged 
wholly  upon  its  merits. 

If  the  "Gentle  Art"  did  not  exist  as  it  does  in  its 
harmony  in  brown,  English  literature  would  lack  a 
volume  which  is  in  itself  a  bit  of  art  and  unique  of 
its  kind.    There  is  nothing  at  all  like  it,  and  only 

i54 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


Whistler  could  have  done  it  The  book  is  a  perfect 
expression  of  one  side  of  his  many-sided  and  extra- 
ordinary personality,  and  as  such  is  therefore  a  work 
of  art,  and,  at  the  same  time,  material  which  cannot 
be  spared  if  the  man  is  to  be  thoroughly  understood  ; 
but  it  reveals  the  side  which  is  least  worth  under- 
standing, it  accentuates  traits  which  are  inconsequen- 
tial, and  it  gives  the  public  an  entirely  erroneous 
impression,  because  the  public  find  it  easy  to  buy 
and  read  the  book,  but  difficult  to  so  much  as  see 
the  pictures,  and  quite  impossible  to  understand  them 
when  they  do  see  them. 

In  Whistler's  life  the  writing  of  the  few  lines  and 
the  putting  together  of  the  matter  contained  in  the 
"  Gentle  Art"  occupied  an  almost  infinitesimal  frac- 
tion of  his  leisure  hours,  whereas  for  fifty  years  he 
painted,  etched,  and  lithographed  industriously  ;  yet, 
so  far  as  the  public  of  England  and  America  is  con- 
cerned, his  controversies  overshadow  his  art ;  while 
to  the  French,  who  happily  could  not  read  the  book, 
he  is  known  only  as  an  artist. 

Criticism  of  art  afforded  Whistler  a  world  of 
amusement,  and  the  art  critic  was  his  especial  aver- 
sion. 

"That  writers  should  destroy  writings  to  the 
benefit  of  writing"  seemed  to  him  just,  but  that 
writers  should  criticise  painting  seemed  to  him 
altogether  illogical. 

And  he  quotes  the  critic  of  the  Times,  who  said 
of  Velasquez's  "Las  Menimas"  that  it  was  "slovenly 

i55 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


in  execution,  poor  in  color, — being  little  but  a  com- 
bination of  neutral  grays  and  ugly  in  its  forms." 

And  he  shows  how  the  same  great  critic  praised  a 
Turner  that  turned  out  to  be  no  Turner.  When 
this  particular  critic  died,  a  few  years  ago,  Whistler 
sorrowfully  said,  "  I  have  hardly  a  warm  personal 
enemy  left." 

And  he  showed  how  one  said  that  Daubigny  had 
neither  drawing  nor  color,  and  another  that  the  works 
of  Corot  to  the  first  impression  of  an  Englishman 
"are  the  sketches  of  an  amateur,"  and  another  that 
everything  Courbet  touches  "becomes  unpleasant." 

All  these  by  the  most  eminent  critics  in  the  land, 
— men  whose  say-so  in  days  gone  by  made  and  un- 
made, for  the  time  being,  the  reputations  of  artists. 

And  he  grouped  together  a  number  of  Ruskin's 
dogmatic  utterances,  where  in  his  enthusiasm  for 
certain  men  he  condemned  others  who  were  infi- 
nitely superior, — as,  for  instance,  where  he  praises 
without  limitations  the  work  of  the  forgotten  Prout, 
and  says  that  Rembrandt's  colors  are  wrong  from 
beginning  to  end,  and  that  "Vulgarity,  dulness, 
or  impiety  will  indeed  always  express  themselves 
through  art  in  brown  and  gray,  as  in  Rembrandt;" 
and  again  where  he  places  Rubens  above  Titian  and 
Raphael,  and  compares  an  unknown  Mulready  with 
Albert  Durer,  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  latter. 

These  things  it  pleased  Whistler  to  do,  and  he  has 
done  them  with  rare  piquancy  in  the  "  Gentle  Art." 

If  what  is  contained  therein  savors  in  aught  of 
malice,  let  it  be  remembered  that  public,  critics, 

156 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


painters  were  snapping  at  his  heels  during  the  years 
that  he  was  doing  the  very  work  which  public,  critics, 
and  painters  now  worship,  and  a  lesser  man  would 
have  yielded  to  the  storm  of  adverse  opinion  and 
ridicule. 

With  the  exception  of  a  few  friends  and  admirers, 
he  was  absolutely  without  support  during  the  period 
when  an  artist  most  needs  encouragement. 

It  is  everlastingly  to  his  credit  that  neither  the 
ridicule  of  others — "  the  voice  of  the  nation" — nor 
his  own  necessities,  and  they  pressed  heavily  at 
times,  caused  him  to  swerve  a  hair's  breadth  from 
what  he  believed  to  be  worth  doing  in  art. 

Nearly  every  great  artist  of  whom  we  have  any 
record  has  at  one  time  or  another  in  his  career 
yielded  to  the  temptation — frequently  under  press- 
ure of  dire  necessity—to  do  something  that  would 
sell.  No  such  reproach  can  be  laid  at  Whistler's 
door. 

The  galled  critics  complained  that  he  did  not 
treat  them  fairly, — that  he  selected  small  excerpts 
from  voluminous  essays ;  whereas,  if  he  had  re- 
printed the  essays  entire,  language  apparently  plain 
would  have  been  reversed  in  meaning.  For  instance, 
he  of  the  Times,  who  had  written  of  Velasquez, 
complained  that  the  quotation  gave  "  exactly  the 
opposite  impression  to  that  which  the  article,  taken 
as  a  whole,  conveys."  It  must  have  been  an  extraor- 
dinary article  to  transform  what  was  quoted  into 
praise  ;  but  Whistler,  in  reply,  said  : 

i57 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


' '  Why  squabble  over  your  little  article  ?  You  did  print 
what  I  quote,  you  know,  Tom  ;  and  it  is  surely  unimportant 
what  more  you  may  have  written  of  the  Master.  That  you 
should  have  written  anything  at  all  is  your  crime." 

Ruskin  never  complained  of  anything  Whistler 
wrote.  The  one  utterance  which  caused  the  suit 
for  libel  was  probably  the  first  and  last  that  passed 
his  lips.  The  eloquent  old  man  never  did  pay 
very  much  attention  to  what  others  thought  of  him  ; 
he  was  too  busy  with  his  own  dreams  and  fancies. 

He  did  write  what  Whistler  quoted  about  Rem- 
brandt, but  the  whole  passage  is  a  lament  over  the 
lack  of  appreciation  of  color,  and  is  as  follows  : 

"  For  instance  :  our  reprobation  of  bright  color  is,  I  think, 
for  the  most  part,  mere  affectation,  and  must  soon  be  done 
away  with.  Vulgarity,  dulness,  or  impiety  will  indeed  always 
express  themselves  through  art  in  brown  and  gray,  as  in 
Rembrandt,  Caravaggio,  and  Salvator  ;  but  we  are  not  wholly 
vulgar,  dull,  or  impious,  nor,  as  moderns,  are  we  necessarily 
obliged  to  continue  so  in  any  wise.  Our  greatest  men, 
whether  sad  or  gay,  still  delight,  like  the  great  men  of  all 
ages,  in  brilliant  hues.  The  coloring  of  Scott  and  Byron  is 
full  and  pure  ;  that  of  Keats  and  Tennyson  rich  even  to 
excess.  Our  practical  failures  in  coloring  are  merely  the 
necessary  consequences  of  our  prolonged  want  of  practice 
during  the  period  of  Renaissance  affectation  and  ignorance  ; 
and  the  only  durable  difference  between  old  and  modern 
coloring  is  the  acceptance  of  certain  hues  by  the  modern, 
which  please  him  by  expressing  that  melancholy  peculiar  to 
his  more  reflective  or  sentimental  character  and  the  greater 
variety  of  them  necessary  to  express  his  greater  science. ' '  1 


1  Modern  Painters,  vol.  iii.,  chap,  xvii.,  paragraph  18. 
158 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


Again,  on  the  subject  of  color,  he  says  : 

"  We  find  the  greatest  artists  mainly  divided  into  two 
groups, — those  who  paint  principally  with  respect  to  local 
color,  headed  by  Paul  Veronese,  Titian,  and  Turner,  and  those 
who  paint  principally  with  reference  to  light  and  shade  irre- 
spective of  color,  headed  by  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Rembrandt, 
and  Raphael.  The  noblest  members  of  each  of  these  classes 
introduce  the  element  proper  to  the  other  class,  in  a  subor- 
dinate way.  Paul  Veronese  introduces  a  subordinate  light 
and  shade,  and  Leonardo  introduces  a  subordinate  local 
color.  The  main  difference  is,  that  with  Leonardo,  Rem- 
brandt, and  Raphael  vast  masses  of  the  picture  are  lost  in 
comparatively  colorless  (dark,  gray,  or  brown)  shadow, — 
these  painters  beginning  with  the  lights  and  going  down  to 
blackness  ;  but  with  Veronese,  Titian,  and  Turner  the  whole 
picture  is  like  the  rose, — glowing  with  color  in  the  shadows 
and  rising  into  paler  and  more  delicate  hues,  or  masses  of 
whiteness,  in  the  lights, — they  having  begun  with  the  shadows 
and  gone  up  to  whiteness. ' ' 

Ruskin  said  so  much  about  art,  and  said  it  so  dog- 
matically, that  no  one  utterance  gives  an  adequate 
conception  of  what  he  thought  about  any  one  man. 
Furthermore,  while  his  language  is  crystal  itself,  his 
thoughts  are  often  contradictory  and  confusing  in 
the  extreme. 

For  instance,  no  man  with  any  sense  of  color 
whatsoever  would  group  Leonardo,  Rembrandt,  and 
Raphael  together  as  men  who  painted  "irrespective 
of  color," — for  no  great  Italian  from  the  days  of 
Giotto  to  those  of  Michael  Angelo  painted  regardless 
of  color ;  on  the  contrary,  color  is  the  one  conspic- 
uous, brilliant,  and  beautiful  feature  of  their  work, 

i59 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


and  the  color-sense,  as  it  existed  in  those  days  in  all 
its  exquisite  refinement,  is,  generally  speaking,  abso- 
lutely wanting  in  ours. 

In  all  but  color  Rembrandt  forgot  more  than  most 
of  the  Italians  ever  knew  ;  but  in  the  use  of  color — 
not  imitatively,  not  after  the  manner  of  nature,  but 
decoratively  and  arbitrarily — the  Italians  forgot  more 
than  Rembrandt  ever  knew  ;  and,  so  far  as  color  is 
concerned,  there  is  absolutely  nothing  in  common 
between  Rembrandt  and  Leonardo  or  Raphael, 
while  there  is  much  in  common  between  the  two 
latter. 

It  was  not  color,  but  light,  that  Ruskin  appre- 
ciated, as  is  shown  by  a  hundred  passages,  but  by 
none  more  clearly  than  that  quoted  wherein  he  says 
of  the  three  painters  last  named, — and  the  italics  are 
his, — "  these  painters  beginning  with  lights  and 
going  down  to  blackness  ;  but  with  Veronese,  Titian, 
and  Turner  the  whole  picture  is  like  the  rose, — 
glowing  with  color  in  the  shadows  and  rising  into 
paler  and  more  delicate  hues,  or  masses  of  white- 
ness, in  the  lights, — they  having  begun  with  the 
shadows  and  gone  up  to  whiteness." 

When  he  held  his  exhibition  in  London,  in  1 892, 
of  "Nocturnes,  Marines,  and  Chevalet  Pieces," — a 
"small  collection  kindly  lent  their  owners," — he 
once  more  printed  in  his  dainty  brown-paper-cov- 
ered catalogue,  beneath  each  picture,  the  early  com- 
ments of  press,  critics,  and  people,  and  called  it  all 
"The  Voice  of  a  People." 

160 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


And  what  a  collection  of  bizarre  opinions  it  is,  to 
be  sure,  from  the  serious  Times  to  the  lightsome 
Merrie  England,  which  said  : 

"  He  paints  in  soot  colors  and  mud  colors,  but,  far 
from  enjoying  the  primary  hues,  has  little  or  no  per- 
ception of  secondary  or  tertiary  color." 

Which  goes  to  show  that  the  budding  science  of 
chromatics  is  not  without  effect  on  vocabularies. 

Here  we  have  the  "kitchen  stuff"  criticism  of 
Turner  in  1842  paraphrased  word  for  word  in  the 
mud  and  soot  criticism  of  Whistler  precisely  fifty 
years  later. 

Is  the  jargon  of  criticism  at  once  limited  and 
exhausted?  Are  we  to  linger  forever  about  the 
cook -stove  in  the  depreciation  of  art?  With  the  in- 
troduction of  the  steel  range  of  mammoth  propor- 
tions can  we  not  find  new  terms  of  opprobrium? 
Besides,  there  are  the  gas  and  gasoline  stoves  of  ex- 
plosive habit,  which  ought  to  be  suggestive  of  nov- 
elty in  vituperation.  But,  alas,  the  critic  is  prone 
to  repeat  himself,  and  the  language  of  the  fathers  is 
visited  upon  the  children  unto  the  third  and  fourth 
generations  of  them  that  hate. 

And  press,  critics,  and  artists  are  convicted,  once 
more,  of  incompetency.  But  what  does  it  matter, 
save  as  a  warning  that  will  not  be  heeded  ?  Are  we 
any  wiser  in  our  generation  ?  Were  Whistler  to 
appear  to-day,  as  he  did  forty-odd  years  ago,  would 
he  be  received  with  the  praise  his  works  command 
now  ?  Hardly. 

161 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


Many  of  his  followers  were  quite  as  absurd  in 
their  misplaced  admiration  as  the  maligned  public  in 
its  denunciation,  and  no  one  knew  it  better  than  he. 
He  came  upon  two  of  them  once  as  they  were  wax- 
ing eloquent  before  a  sketch  that  had  somehow 
escaped  his  studio, — possibly  overlooked  and  left 
behind  in  some  of  his  movings.  He  listened  a 
moment  to  their  raptures,  fitted  his  monocle  to  his 
eye,  took  a  look  at  this  "  masterpiece,"  and  said  : 

"  God  bless  me,  I  wonder  where  that  came  from. 
Not  worth  the  canvas  it's  painted  on." 

And  he  turned  away. 

We  who  have  been  taught  to  see,  not  wholly  but 
in  part,  may  laugh  at  our  betters  who,  when  he  first 
appeared,  could  see  nothing  at  all ;  but  our  virtue  is 
acquired. 

His  attitude  towards  critics  is  summed  up  in  the 
short  but  pointed  article  written  in  December,  1878, 
shortly  after  the  Ruskin  suit,  and  called  "Art  and 
Art  Critics." 

"  Shall  the  painter,  then  (I  foresee  the  question),  decide 
upon  painting  ?  Shall  he  be  the  critic  and  sole  authority  ? 
Aggressive  as  is  this  supposition,  I  fear  that,  in  the  length  of 
time,  his  assertion  alone  has  established  what  even  the  gen- 
tlemen of  the  quill  accept  as  the  canons  of  art  and  recognize 
as  the  masterpieces  of  work. ' ' 

All  of  which  is  undeniably  true.  The  painter 
must  in  the  end  judge  of  painting,  and  the  sculptor 
judge  of  sculpture.    But  there  are  two  distinct  sides 

162 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


to  a  work  of  art, — to  every  work,  for  that  matter : 
there  is  the  relation  between  the  worker  and  his 
work,  and  the  relation  between  the  completed  work 
and  the  public, — the  work  being  the  intermediary 
between  artist  and  people,  his  means  of  communi- 
cation, his  mode  and  manner  of  speech. 

There  is,  therefore,  the  process  of  creation  and 
the  process  of  appreciation,  of  utterance  and  of 
understanding. 

The  painting  of  a  picture  is  one  thing,  its  appre- 
ciation by  the  public  is  quite  another. 

A  man  need  not  be  a  dramatist  to  watch  the 
effect  of  a  drama  upon  the  audience  ;  a  man  need 
not  own  a  vineyard  to  know  good  wine. 

The  critic  stands,  or,  rather,  should  stand,  between 
the  public  and  the  work  he  criticises,  whether  it  be 
poem,  painting,  statue,  or  drama  ;  the  mistake  he 
commonly  makes  is  in  forcing  himself  between  the 
worker  and  his  work,  and  in  trying  to  teach  him 
something  only  another  and  better  worker  in  the 
same  art  is  competent  to  do. 

Critics  make  most  of  their  blunders  in  judging 
works  according  to  preconceived  notions  as  to  how 
they  should  be  done, — in  condemning,  for  instance, 
a  picture  because  not  painted  after  prevailing  modes 
and  methods,  because  it  is  a  departure,  whereas 
with  these  considerations  the  lay-critic  has  nothing 
to  do  ;  they  fall  entirely  within  the  province  of  the 
painter-critic,  the  one  man  who  is  competent,  in  the 
long  run,  to  pass  upon  the  methods  employed. 

Every  work  is  an  appeal  to  the  public, — its  com- 
163 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


pletion  and  exhibition  make  it  such ;  therefore, 
every  work  challenges  the  critical  faculties,  great  or 
small,  of  those  who  see  it.  It  is  inevitable  that  some 
more  interested  should  spring  up  to  interpret,  rightly 
or  wrongly,  the  work  to  the  public  ;  the  artist  sel- 
dom takes  the  trouble, — in  fact,  has  neither  the  time 
nor  the  temperament ;  his  message  is  complete  in 
the  picture,  others  must  understand  it  as  best  they 
can. 

The  playwright  cannot  address  the  audience  save 
through  the  play,  the  poet  speaks  only  through  his 
poetry,  the  painter  through  his  pictures,  the  sculptor 
through  the  forms  of  his  creation.  Seldom  is  an 
artist  gifted  with  more  than  one  tongue,  and  that 
tongue  is  his  art.  How,  then,  can  artists  interpret 
the  work  of  artists  ?  How  can  the  painter,  who  is 
dumb  save  with  his  brush,  or  the  sculptor,  who  is 
mute  save  with  his  clay  and  chisel,  tell  the  world 
anything  about  the  work  of  others  ? 

It  is  the  business  of  those  who  can  speak  and 
write  to  tell  the  people,  not  how  the  work  was  created, 
unless  they  were  present,  but  how  it  impressed  them 
as  a  finished  thing.  That  is  the  province  of  legitimate 
criticism. 

Every  man  who  has  done  his  best  to  understand, 
though  at  the  risk  of  betraying  his  ignorance,  has 
the  right  to  say  how  he  likes  what  he  sees  or  hears 
or  tastes.  The  opinions  of  some  are  worth  more 
than  those  of  others  ;  and  these  opinions,  with  the 
reasons  therefor,  we  are  delighted  to  hear.  That  is 
about  all  there  is  to  sound  criticism  ;  and  in  that  sense 

164 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


comment  and  those  whose  profession  is  to  comment 
are  inevitable, — until  the  aesthetic  millenium,  when 
critics  cease  from  troubling  and  the  artists  are  at  rest. 

Ruskin,  unfortunately,  attempted  the  double  duty 
of  telling  painters  how  to  paint  and  the  public  what 
to  like.  With  all  his  industry  and  considerable 
talent  for  drawing,  he  was  not  competent  to  tell 
painters  how  to  paint, — though  much  that  he  said  is 
accepted  as  sound, — and  his  judgments  of  the  rela- 
tive merits  of  painters  and  pictures  were  biassed  by 
his  own  convictions  regarding  the  way  the  work 
should  be  done. 

His  limitations  were  due  to  his  strong  preferences 
and  violent  prejudices.  His  devotion  to  Turner — a 
great  painter — was  one  limitation  ;  lack  of  appre- 
ciation of  Rembrandt  was  another ;  failure  to  esti- 
mate Velasquez  at  his  real  worth  was  another ;  and 
a  lot  of  enthusiasms  for  men  who  are  now  forgotten 
are  so  many  additional  evidences  of  lack  of  judicial 
temper  in  Ruskin.  But  all  these  things  are  as  noth- 
ings in  comparison  with  the  rich  store  of  things  said 
in  English  so  strong,  so  simple,  and  yet  so  beautiful 
that  it  fairly  intoxicates  and  rouses  something  akin 
to  a  religious  enthusiasm. 

A  word  concerning  the  "Voice  of  a  People,"  as 
Whistler  called  his  little  collection  of  criticisms. 
What  is  it  ? 

In  literature  the  "  Voice  of  a  People"  makes 
itself  heard  at  the  bookseller's  counter  and  over 
the  desk  of  the  circulating  library, — and  that,  too, 

165 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


regardless  of  critics  who  praise  this  book  and  con- 
demn that.  Sometimes,  before  the  Critic  has  spoken, 
the  "  Voice"  is  heard,  and  the  presses  groan  with  the 
burden  of  their  task  ;  or,  more  often,  after  the  Critic 
has  had  his  say,  the  "  Voice,"  disregarding  labored 
precepts,  calls  loudly  for  what  it  is  told  it  should  not 
have  ;  and  so  in  literature  the  "  Voice"  makes  itself 
heard  loud  and  clear  and  natural,  and  there  is  no 
mistaking  it. 

Likewise  in  the  drama  the  insistent  1 '  Voice"  de- 
mands trash  or  otherwise,  quite  regardless  of  the 
protest  of  the  Critic.  The  run  of  a  play  is  not  de- 
termined by  the  criticisms.  The  opinion  of  the 
Critic  is  often  foreseen  and  defied  ;  but  neither 
writer,  manager,  nor  actor  can  foretell  the  verdict 
of  the  "Voice," — favorable  often  when  least  ex- 
pected ;  adverse  often  when  least  deserved. 

But  in  art  the  "Voice" — stentorian  in  literature 
and  the  drama — sinks  to  a  whisper  so  diffident  that 
it  cannot  be  heard  amidst  the  trumpetings  of  the 
Critics. 

The  Critics — those  whose  business  it  was  to  write 
and  talk  about  art — ridiculed  Whistler,  not  the 
"Voice."  Left  wholly  to  itself,  it  is  quite  likely  the 
"Voice"  would  have  found  much  that  it  liked  in  the 
beautiful  combinations  of  tones  and  colors,  for  there 
is  nothing  inherently  repulsive  in  Whistler's  work,  as 
in  much  other  that  Critics  command  the  "Voice" 
to  praise  ;  on  the  contrary,  his  paintings  are  exceed- 
ingly restful  to  the  eye,  and  exceedingly  attractive 
as  schemes  of  color  if  nothing  else.    The  "Voice," 

166 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


left  to  itself,  would  say,  "  I  do  not  understand  them, 
but  I  like  them, — just  as  I  like  music,  without  know- 
ing much  about  it." 

But  the  "Voice" — independent  enough  in  litera- 
ture, the  drama,  and  even  in  music — dares  not  lisp 
in  art  until  the  Critic  speaks.  Then  the  "  Voice" 
praises  what  he  praises,  condemns  what  he  con- 
demns, until  the  secret  purchases  and  growing  de- 
mand for  the  outcast  confounds  both  Critic  and 
echoing  " Voice."  Then  the  "Voice"  turns — as  it 
has  in  the  case  of  Whistler — and  rends  the  Critics, 
unless  those  agile  gentlemen  change  sides  and  praise 
what  they  formerly  condemned. 

Too  bad  that  Whistler  attributed  the  "Voice"  of 
the  Critic  to  that  long-suffering  animal — the  Public, 
which,  if  often  wrong,  is  always  honest,  and,  in  all 
but  art — vociferous. 

Concerning  his  habit  of  persistently  impaling  the 
critics,  a  writer  says  : 1 

"  We  wish  that  the  catalogue  did  not,  for  the  tenth  time, 
contain  quotations  from  all  the  dull  things  which  bewildered 
criticism  has  said  about  him.  Mr.  Whistler  is  a  wit,  and 
should  recollect  that  the  same  old  joke  must  not  be  told  too 
often  to  the  same  old  audience. ' ' 

But  where  is  the  joke?  In  the  criticisms  or  in 
their  repetition  ?  If  the  criticisms  were  serious,  then 
repetition  is  doubly  serious. 


1  Sattcrday  Review,  March  26,  1892,  p.  357. 

167 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 

Nor  is  it  "the  same  old  audience,"  but  each  year, 
each  hour,  a  new  audience.  Of  all  the  English- 
speaking  people  not  one  in  a  million  have  ever 
heard  the  joke  ;  and  if  joke  there  be,  it  is  surely 
a  gracious  act  to  make  it  known. 

The  far-seeing  publisher  deftly  detaches  the  favor- 
able comment  from  uncongenial  context  and  prints 
it  boldly  on  the  fly-leaf  of  the  volume.  Why  should 
not  author  or  painter  print  his  page  of  deprecia- 
tions that,  as  Whistler  says,  "history  maybe  cleanly 
written"  ?  And  if  preserved  and  printed  once,  why 
not  for  all  time  ? 

The  record  of  a  people  is  not  complete  unless 
their  likes  and  dislikes  be  known.  What  would  we 
not  give  for  the  adverse  criticisms  of  Shakespeare  ? 
And  there  must  have  been  many  besides  poor 
Greene's.  What  would  we  not  give  for  some  of  the 
off-hand  comments  of  his  fellow-actors  and  his  fel- 
low-managers ? 

The  world  conspires  to  deceive  the  world.  The 
literature  of  adulation  is  carefully  conserved  until 
mortals,  denuded  of  their  frailties,  become  gods. 

In  the  course  of  his  career  Whistler  met  with 
many  bizarre  appreciations,  but  none  more  astonish- 
ing than  this  : 1 

••To  understand  Mr.  Whistler  you  must  understand  his 
body.  I  do  not  mean  that  Mr.  Whistler  has  suffered  from 
bad  health, — his  health  has  always  been  excellent ;  all  great 


1  Moore,  Modern  Painting,  p.  6. 
168 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


artists  have  excellent  health,  but  his  constitution  is  more 
nervous  than  robust.  He  is  even  a  strong  man,  but  he  is 
lacking  in  weight.  Were  he  six  inches  taller  and  his  bulk 
proportionally  increased,  his  art  would  be  different." 

The  classification  of  the  prize-ring  into  feather-, 
light-,  middle-,  and  heavy-weights  makes  its  appear- 
ance in  art ;  genius,  like  jockeys,  must  weigh-in  and 
-out.  By  rights,  therefore,  Paganini  should  have 
played  the  bass-viol  and  Napoleon  should  have  been 
a  drummer-boy.  The  painter  must  measure  his 
canvas  by  his  belt,  and  bant  the  masterpiece  into 
shape.  The  gymnasium  is  the  true  school  of  art, 
and  the  dumb-bell  is  mightier  than  the  brush. 

"For  if  Whistler  had  been  six  inches  taller  and  his  bulk 
proportionally  increased,  .  .  .  instead  of  having  painted  a 
dozen  portraits, — everyone,  even  the  'Mother'  and  'Miss 
Alexander,'  which  I  personally  take  to  be  the  two  best, 
a  little  febrile  in  its  extreme  beauty,  whilst  some,  master- 
pieces though  they  be,  are  clearly  touched  with  weakness 
and  marked  with  hysteria,  — Mr.  Whistler  would  have  painted 
a  hundred  portraits  as  strong,  as  vigorous,  as  decisive,  and 
as  easily  accomplished  as  any  by  Velasquez  or  Hals. ' ' 

This  is  the  sort  of  comment  that  follows  but 
never  precedes  acquaintance.  After  knowing  a 
painter,  it  is  easy  to  discover  all  his  physical  charac- 
teristics and  idiosyncrasies  in  his  work, — so  easy,  in 
fact,  that  many  critics  prefer  to  pass  on  books,  plays, 
and  pictures  on  their  merits  without  knowing  any- 
thing about  the  authors,  the  actors,  or  painters  ;  for 
in  the  end  a  work  must  stand  or  fall  by  itself. 

169 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 

From  an  examination  of  the  "  Hermes,"  can  this 
critic  give  us  the  stature  of  Praxiteles?  From  the 
"Nike"  in  the  Louvre  can  he  describe  the  unknown 
master?  What  does  the  "Sistine  Madonna"  tell 
him  of  the  weight  of  Raphael,  or  the  "  Lesson  in 
Anatomy"  of  the  "bulk"  of  Rembrandt? 

A  man's  physical  condition  may  be — frequently 
is — reflected  in  his  work.  If  he  is  an  invalid,  what 
he  does  is  apt  to  show  it, — though  Herbert  Spencer 
is  a  case  to  the  contrary ;  but  his  physique  is  another 
matter.  Genius  is  not  a  matter  of  inches.  The 
weight  of  the  brain  is  not  controlled  by  the  size  of 
the  body;  still  more  independent  is  the  organization 
and  development  of  the  brain. 

If  a  man  have  strength  and  health — and  these  the 
critic  concedes  to  Whistler — his  work  may  be  the 
work  of  a  giant. 

One  of  the  greatest  and  strongest  of  Germany's 
living  artists  is  almost  a  dwarf ;  the  most  virile  painter 
in  America  to-day  is  short  and  slight. 

The  same  critic,  referring  to  the  letters  in  the 
"Gentle  Art,"  says,  "If  Mr.  Whistler  had  the  bull- 
like health  of  Michael  Angelo,  Rubens,  Hals,  the 
letters  would  never  have  been  written."  But,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  Angelo  was  "a  man  of  more  than 
usually  nervous  temperament."  As  any  one  at  all 
familiar  with  his  career,  his  many  controversies,  his 
voluminous  letters,  well  knows,  "his  temperament 
exposed  him  to  sudden  outbursts  of  scorn  and  anger 

170 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


which  brought  him  now  and  then  into  violent  col- 
lision with  his  neighbors."  His  habit  of  ridiculing 
and  annoying  his  fellow-pupils  invited  the  blow  from 
Pietro  Torrigiano  which  gave  him  his  broken  nose. 
He  was  a  weakly  child  and  suffered  two  illnesses  in 
manhood,  but  by  carefully  refraining  from  all  ex- 
cesses he  regained  and  preserved  his  health.  "  His 
countenance  always  showed  a  good  and  wholesome 
color.  Of  stature  he  is  as  follows  :  height  middling, 
broad  in  the  shoulders  ;  the  rest  of  the  body  some- 
what slender  in  proportion." 

The  foregoing  scarcely  bears  out  the  sweeping 
generalization  that  "the  greatest  painters,  I  mean 
the  very  greatest, — Michael  Angelo,  Velasquez,  and 
Rubens, — were  gifted  by  nature  with  as  full  a  meas- 
ure of  health  as  of  genius.  Their  physical  consti- 
tutions resembled  more  those  of  bulls  than  of 
men." 

As  for  Velasquez,  who  can  speak  authoritatively 
for  him  ? 

While  the  physical  characteristics  of  geniuses  are 
habitually  exaggerated,  and  the  weak,  the  nervous, 
the  delicate  are  made  well  and  strong  and  "like 
bulls"  in  the  enthusiasm  of  appreciation  or  the  exi- 
gencies of  theory,  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  point 
out  in  history,  art,  and  literature  innumerable  in- 
stances of  men  whose  achievements  afford  no  indi- 
cations whatsoever  of  their  bodily  make  up, — in 
fact,  it  is  common  experience  that  neither  poet  nor 
painter  ever  corresponds  with  preconceived  notions, 

171 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 

and  to  meet  the  one  or  the  other  is  to  court  disen- 
chantment. 

If  Whistler  had  been  six  inches  taller  he  would 
not  have  been  Angelo,  or  Rembrandt,  or  Velasquez, 
but — in  all  probability — a  soldier. 


172 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


VII 

Supreme  as  a  Colorist — Color  and  Music — His 
Susceptibility  to  Color — Ruskin  and  Color — Art 
and  Nature. 

Supreme  as  a  colorist,  Whistler  achieved  fame  as 
an  etcher  long  before  the  world  acknowledged  his 
greatness  as  a  painter.  Even  now  it  is  the  fashion 
to  exalt  his  etchings  to  the  depreciation  of  his  paint- 
ings,— to  say  that  he  was  a  great  artist  in  the  one 
medium  but  unsuccessful  in  the  other. 

The  following  is  a  fair  illustration  of  this  sort  of 
comment : 

"Cool-headed  conservatism  should  clarify  the  halo  which 
encircles  Whistler's  portraits.  The  periodic  'symphonies,' 
'harmonies,'  and  'arrangements,'  in  gray  and  green,  green 
and  rose,  purple  and  gold,  or  brown  and  black,  have,  or 
had,  novelty  to  recommend  them, — more  novelty,  however, 
than  psychology.  Apart  from  one  or  two,  they  are  little 
beyond  essays  in  subdued  Japonisme  with  subtle  dashes  of 
Velasquez.  The  portrait  of  his  mother  alone  shows  adequate 
depth,  for  the  overlauded  Carlyle  is  merely  a  male  replica  of 
the  single  canvas  wherein  the  artist  seemed  to  lose — and  to 
find — himself.  It  is  not  in  portraiture,  but  in  etching  and 
lithography,  that  Whistler  has  disclosed  the  validity  of  his 
talent. ' ' 1 


1  The  Critic,  vol.  xxxviii.  p.  32,  January,  1901. 
173 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


To  which  may  be  added  the  following  comments 
since  his  death  from  leading  American  papers  : 

' '  Whistler  in  earlier  life  was  a  real  etcher,  easily  the  first 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  number  of  his  plates  of  the 
best  quality  is  comparatively  small.  He  soon  lost  his  power 
or  the  incentive  to  execute  it.  His  hand  degenerated,  his 
work  became  trivial  and  insincere.  As  a  painter  none  of  his 
pictures  will  ever  explain  to  posterity  the  reputation,  or  the 
apparent  reputation,  that  he  enjoyed  during  his  lifetime." 

' '  It  is,  however,  as  an  etcher  rather  than  as  a  painter  that 
Whistler  will  be  remembered." 

' '  Thus,  setting  aside  the  portraits  of  his  mother,  of 
Thomas  Carlyle,  Lady  Campbell,  and  Miss  Alexander, 
and  the  startling  '  Nocturne  in  Blue  and  Silver, '  and  the 
*  Arrangement  in  Black, '  it  might  be  possible  to  count  upon 
the  fingers  of  one  hand  the  finest  examples  of  his  brush." 

Many  others  of  similar  import  might  be  gathered, 
but  the  foregoing  suffice.  In  reading  them  it  should 
not  be  forgotten  that  the  etchings,  which  are  now 
praised  without  reserve,  passed  through  the  same 
stages  of  depreciation  through  which  the  paintings 
are  passing  ;  so  that,  guided  by  the  parallel,  it  is 
reasonable  to  expect  the  complete  acceptance  of  the 
latter  as  masterpieces  in  the  near  future. 

Broadly  speaking,  the  order  of  acceptance  has 
been  : 

First.  Etchings  and  lithographs. 
Second.  Portraits. 

Third.  Color  harmonies, — such  as  many  of  his 
figure-pieces,  marines,  nocturnes,  and  pure  color 
compositions  generally,  none  of  which  is  fully 
accepted,  some  of  which  are  scarcely  known,  and 

i74 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


all  of  which  are  misunderstood,  in  spite  of  his  many 
explicit  words  of  explanation. 

Such  has  been  the  order  of  general  acceptance 
of  his  work  ;  but  the  order  of  real  merit  is  almost 
precisely  reversed. 

Whistler  stands  supreme, — 

First  as  a  colorist. 

Secondly  as  a  painter  of  portraits. 

Thirdly  as  an  etcher  and  lithographer. 

As  an  etcher  comparisons  are  drawn  between  him 
and  Rembrandt. 

As  a  painter  of  portraits  comparisons  are  drawn 
between  him  and  Velasquez. 

As  a  colorist  he  is  beyond  comparison  save  with 
the  masters  of  the  far  East. 

In  etching  and  lithography  and  the  painting  of 
portraits  he,  at  most,  simply  did  as  well  or  better 
what  others  have  done  before  ;  but  in  the  composi- 
tion of  harmonies  of  color  to  please  the  eye,  as 
harmonies  of  sound  please  the  ear,  he  accomplished 
results  which  are  unique. 

What  he  did  with  the  needle  is  not  so  wholly  and 
absolutely  unlike  all  that  had  been  done  before  as 
to  render  comparisons  impossible  ;  whereas  with  the 
brush  in  his  domain  of  color  Whistler  stands  alone. 
His  art  was  his  own ;  he  painted  like  no  other  man 
dead  or  living. 

His  etchings  were  so  fine,  so  subtle,  that  the  world 
had  difficulty  in  comprehending  them  ;  but  it  did 
learn  to  like  them,  and  that,  too,  at  a  comparatively 
early  date.     But  even  now  his  pictures  are  fully 

i75 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


understood  by  no  one  ;  and  yet  they  have  had  a  pro- 
founder  influence  upon  the  art  of  to-day  than  those 
of  any  other  master. 

He  opened  the  door  of  the  East  to  the  painters 
of  the  West  and  showed  them  how  they  might  paint 
after  the  manner  of  the  best  there  is  in  the  Oriental 
world,  and  not  only  retain,  but  accentuate  their  own 
individuality. 

The  secret  of  Whistler's  art,  as  of  all  great  art,  is 
that  it  was  the  absolutely  true  and  unaffected  expres- 
sion of  his  convictions  and  of  his  impressions  of  the 
life  and  world  about  him  ;  and  his  impressions  and 
convictions  in  the  domain  of  color,  like  those  of 
Beethoven  in  the  world  of  sound,  were  worth  re- 
cording. 

He  is  to  color  what  Beethoven  is  to  sound,  and 
his  distinguishing  merit  is  that  of  all  the  men  of  his 
century  or  of  many  preceding  centuries  he  was  the 
only  one  to  treat  color  as  a  composer  of  music  treats 
sound, — as  material  for  the  arrangement  of  harmonies 
to  please  the  eye  as  music  pleases  the  ear. 

When  Burne-Jones,  in  the  Ruskin  suit,  was  asked 
if  he  saw  any  art  quality  in  "The  Falling  Rocket," 
he  apologetically  said,  "  I  must  speak  the  truth,  you 
know,"  and  then  testified:  "It  has  fine  color  and 
atmosphere,"  but  of  detail  and  composition  "abso- 
lutely none." 

As  if  the  shower  of  fire  of  a  falling  rocket  against 
the  blackness  of  night  could  have  sharp  detail  and 
composition  ;  as  if  anything  were  possible  beyond 

176 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


"fine  color  and  atmosphere  ;"  and  color  and  atmos- 
phere are  all  Whistler  intended.  "  My  whole 
scheme,"  he  himself  testified,  "was  only  to  bring 
about  a  certain  harmony  of  color,"  and,  according 
to  the  only  decently  qualified  witness  for  the  other 
side,  he  succeeded. 

Even  Frith,  the  painter  of  "  Derby  Day"  and  the 
"Rake's  Progress,"  said,  " There  is  a  pretty  color 
which  pleases  the  eye,  but  there  is  nothing  more." 

Why  should  there  be  anything  more,  if  to  please 
the  eye  were  the  painter's  sole  intention  ?  Is  it  not 
as  legitimate  to  please  the  eye  with  compositions  of 
color,  otherwise  meaningless,  as  it  is  to  please  the 
ear  with  compositions  of  sound  ? 

Profoundly  speaking,  color  has  no  other  object 
than  to  please  the  eye.  The  story  should  be  told,  the 
moral  pointed,  in  black  and  white.  The  use  of  color 
imitatively,  or  to  accentuate  the  characterization,  is 
as  base  as  the  use  of  sound  imitatively. 

Color  is  to  the  eye  precisely  what  sound  is  to  the 
ear,  and  the  highest  use  to  which  either  can  be  put 
is  the  production  of  pure,  not  to  say  abstract,  har- 
monies for  the  satisfaction  of  its  respective  sense. 

As  long  ago  as  1868  Swinburne,  in  a  pamphlet  on 
the  Royal  Academy  exhibition  of  that  year,  said  : 

' '  No  task  is  harder  than  this  translation  from  color  into 
speech,  when  the  speech  must  be  so  hoarse  and  feeble,  when 
the  color  is  so  subtle  and  sublime.  Music  and  verse  might 
strike  some  string  accordant  in  sound  to  such  painting,  but  a 
version  such  as  this  is  a  psalm  of  Tate's  to  a  psalm  of 

177 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


David's.  In  all  of  the  main  strings  touched  are  certain 
varying  chords  of  blue  and  white,  not  without  interludes  of 
the  bright  and  tender  tones  of  floral  purple  or  red.  They 
all  have  immediate  beauty,  they  all  give  the  delight  of 
natural  things  ;  they  seem  to  have  grown  as  a  flower  grows, 
not  in  any  forcing  house  of  ingenious  and  laborious  cunning. 
This  is,  in  my  eyes,  a  special  quality  of  Mr.  Whistler's 
genius ;  a  freshness  and  fulness  of  the  loveliest  life  of 
things,  with  a  high,  clear  power  upon  them  which  seems  to 
educe  a  picture  as  the  sun  does  a  blossom  or  a  fruit." 

In  language  too  plain  for  the  slightest  misunder- 
standing he  has  himself  told  the  world  precisely 
what  he  meant  his  pictures  to  be,  but  the  world  will 
not  take  him  at  his  word. 

Nearly  thirty  years  ago,  when  the  people  wondered 
at  his  calling  his  works  "symphonies,"  "arrange- 
ments," "harmonies,"  and  "nocturnes,"  he  wrote  : 

"The  vast  majority  of  English  folk  cannot  and  will  not 
consider  a  picture  apart  from  any  story  which  it  may  be 
supposed  to  tell. 

' '  My  picture  of  a  '  Harmony  in  Gray  and  Gold'  is  an 
illustration  of  my  meaning, — a  snow-scene  with  a  single 
black  figure  and  a  lighted  tavern.  I  care  nothing  for  the 
past,  present,  or  future  of  the  black  figure,  placed  there  be- 
cause the  black  was  wanted  at  that  spot.  All  that  I  know  is 
that  my  combination  of  gray  and  gold  is  the  basis  of  the 
picture.  Now,  this  is  precisely  what  my  friends  cannot 
grasp. 

' '  They  say,  « Why  not  call  it  ' '  Trotty  Veck, '  *  and  sell  it  for 
a  round  harmony  of  golden  guineas  ?'  naively  acknowledging 
that  without  baptism  there  is  no  .  .  .  market !"  1 


i  Gentle  Art,  p.  126. 
178 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


And  farther  on  he  said  : 

"As  music  is  the  poetry  of  sound,  so  is  painting  the 
poetry  of  sight,  and  the  subject-matter  has  nothing  to  do 
with  harmony  of  sound  or  color. 

"  The  great  musicians  knew  this.  Beethoven  and  the  rest 
wrote  music, — simply  music  ;  symphony  in  this  key,  con- 
certo or  sonata  in  that. 

"On  F  or  G  they  constructed  celestial  harmonies, — as 
harmonies, — combinations  evolved  from  the  chorus  of  F  or 
G  and  their  minor  correlatives. 

"This  is  pure  music  as  distinguished  from  airs, — common- 
place and  vulgar  in  themselves,  but  interesting  from  their 
associations, — as,  for  instance,  '  Yankee  Doodle,  or  '  Partant 
pour  la  Syrie.' 

"  Art  should  be  independent  of  all  clap-trap,  should  stand 
alone,  and  appeal  to  the  artistic  sense  of  eye  or  ear,  without 
confounding  this  with  emotions  entirely  foreign  to  it,  as  de- 
votion, pity,  love,  patriotism,  and  the  like.  All  these  have 
no  kind  of  concern  with  it  ;  and  that  is  why  I  insist  on  calling 
my  works  '  arrangements'  and  '  harmonies. '  "  1 

And  concerning  the  portrait  of  his  mother,  which 
nearly  every  one  admires  for  the  subject  while  few 
pause  to  consider  the  color,  he  wrote  : 

' '  Take  the  picture  of  my  mother,  exhibited  at  the  Royal 
Academy  as  an  'Arrangement  in  Gray  and  Black.'  Now, 
that  is  what  it  is.  To  me  it  is  interesting  as  a  picture  of  my 
mother  ;  but  what  can  or  ought  the  public  to  care  about  the 
identity  of  the  portrait  ?' '  2 

Within  these  few  lines  are  contained  Whistler's 
whole  philosophy  of  art,  his  convictions  and  his 


1  Gentle  Art,  pp.  127,  128.  2  Ibid.,  p.  128. 

179 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


intentions  ;  the  words  are  so  plain  a  child  may  read 
and  comprehend  their  meaning,  and  yet  people  will 
not  understand  him. 

Whistler's  art  was  purely  sensuous,  as  the  finest 
music  is  sensuous.  He  had  no  interest  whatsoever 
in  the  many  problems  of  life  and  death,  in  the  story 
of  any  person  or  the  traditions  of  any  place. 

He  had  less  interest  in  the  associations  connected 
with  Old  Battersea  Bridge  than  the  boatman  lazily 
floating  by  ;  but  at  certain  hours  and  under  certain 
conditions,  at  twilight  or  at  dusk,  or  in  the  fog,  it 
made  a  long,  tremulous  line  which  pleased  him,  and 
he  painted  it. 

The  fact  that  the  Thames  bounds  English  his- 
tory was  of  no  consequence  to  him  ;  but  the  muddy 
river  between  lines  of  buildings  and  wharves  and 
shipping,  and  covered  by  boats  and  crossed  by 
bridges,  furnished  him  endless  compositions  in  line 
and  color. 

The  glory  and  the  romance  of  Venice  made  no 
impression  on  his  art ;  but  in  out-of-the-way  places, 
where  others  saw  nothing,  he  found  scenes  which 
inspired  his  etchings. 

As  an  etcher  and  a  lithographer  Whistler  played 
with  the  mystery  of  line,  as  in  painting  he  played 
with  the  mystery  of  color. 

There  is  an  art  of  pure  line  as  there  is  an  art  of 
pure  form  and  of  pure  color.  It  is  just  as  possible 
to  make  a  lot  of  meaningless  lines  which  please  the 
eye  in  their  curves  and  endless  variety  as  it  is  to 
please  the  eye  with  combinations  of  colors. 

180 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


Decorative  patterns  and  designs,  aside  from 
color,  are  simply  line  harmonies. 

A  child  loves  to  make  straight  and  round  and 
curved  lines  upon  slate  or  paper. 

The  eye  follows  lines  with  a  delight  akin  to  that 
taken  in  form  and  color. 

When  the  Savoy  Hotel  was  in  process  of  con- 
struction, and  the  great  steel  beams  thrust  them- 
selves upward  towards  the  sky,  and  there  was  a 
lattice-work  of  girders  and  a  veritable  song  of  line, 
Whistler,  seeing  it  one  day  from  a  neighboring  win- 
dow, exclaimed  : 

"  Hurry ;  where  are  my  things  ?  I  must  catch 
that  now,  for  it  will  never  again  be  so  beautiful." 

High  buildings,  mechanical  processes,  modern 
costumes  had  no  terrors  for  him,  simply  because  he 
had  no  sentiment  concerning  them  ;  if  they  fur- 
nished him  beauties  of  line  or  color  he  cared  not 
whether  they  were  new  or  old. 

Whistler's  art  was  as  devoid  of  sentiment  as  that 
of  a  Japanese. 

To  our  Western  notions  the  everlasting  convention 
that  serves  for  a  face  in  Japanese  art  seems  hope- 
lessly monotonous.  To  them  our  painstaking  char- 
acterization of  the  features  and  peculiarities  of  each 
person  is  no  art  at  all,  but  grotesque  caricature  ; 
it  is  the  subordination  of  art  which  is  of  universal 
interest  to  the  eccentricities  of  the  individual  which 
are  of  local  interest. 

In  Whistler's  art  one  must  not  look  for  any  solu- 
181 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


tion  of  the  problems  of  life,  for  any  sign  of  the 
emotions  which  control  human  conduct, — for  love 
and  hate  and  fear,  for  hope  and  ambition,  for  the 
tortures  of  jealousy  or  the  bitterness  of  despair, — 
these  are  all  absent ;  his  art  is  pure  and  serene.  His 
works  are  to  painting  what  the  "Ode  to  a  Grecian 
Urn"  or  "A  Midsummer  Nights  Dream"  is  to 
poetry,  and  hence  in  human  interest  they  fall  far 
short  of  the  tragedies,  the  epics,  the  romances  of 
literature  and  art,  and  they  must  not  be  judged  by 
standards  he  did  not  seek  to  emulate.  He  could  no 
more  have  painted  a  "Crucifixion"  or  a  "Last 
Judgment"  than  he  could  have  carved  the  "Moses" 
or  written  "  Hamlet."  In  every  sense,  save  that  of 
abstract  beauty  of  line  and  color,  other  painters 
have  excelled  Whistler,  but  as  the  master  of  pure 
line  and  color  harmonies  he  is  supreme. 

Whistler's  etchings  and  photographs  were  simply 
compositions  in  line,  delightful  harmonies  in  black 
and  white.  It  is  too  bad  to  preserve  their  names  or 
identify  them  with  any  locality,  for  their  exquisite 
art  is  better  appreciated  if  no  distracting  considera- 
tion is  aroused.  But,  oddly  enough,  he  occasionally 
made  concessions  in  the  naming  of  these  that  he 
did  not  in  the  naming  of  his  paintings. 

Take,  for  instance,  that  charming  lithograph, 
"Confidences  in  the  Garden," — two  ladies  walking 
in  the  corner  of  an  old  garden.  The  garden  is  in 
the  rear  of  his  Paris  home  on  the  Rue  du  Bac.  The 
ladies  are  probably  Mrs.  Whistler  and  her  sister.  But 

182 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


what  does  it  add  to  the  print  to  call  it  "  Confidences 
in  the  Garden"  ?  Nothing  at  all.  On  the  contrary, 
the  title  at  once  suggests  a  host  of  considerations 
which  conflict  with  the  abstract  enjoyment  of  the 
composition. 

That  sort  of  a  title  is  precisely  what  he  condemns 
for  his  paintings.  It  is,  however,  one  of  the  very 
few  instances  where  his  titles  suggest  anything  more 
than  the  obvious  subject.  For  the  most  part  he  was 
consistent  in  choosing  names  that  do  not  distract. 

Even  the  portraits  he  did  not  care  to  have  known 

as  "Portrait  of  Mr.  A  ,"  or  "  Portrait  of  Lady 

C  "  thereby  catering  first  to  the  vanity  of  a  sit- 
ter, then  to  the  idle  curiosity  of  the  multitude.  His 
portraits  were  compositions  in  line  and  color,  and, 
as  such,  were  artistic  creations.  That  they  happened 
also  to  be  portraits  of  certain  individuals  was  a 
mere  coincidence.  The  portrait  feature,  upon  which 
people  lay  so  much  stress,  was  of  the  least  conse- 
quence to  him  ;  and  just  because  he  did  not  permit 
the  photographic  element  to  move  him,  he  secured 
results  which  are  far  beyond  the  art  of  the  "por- 
trait-painter." 

The  sense  of  color  is  so  lost  to  painters,  as  well  as 
to  laymen,  that  to  talk  of  color  compositions  as  one 
speaks  of  sound  compositions  is  to  challenge  doubt 
and  occasion  surprise.  And  yet  there  is  a  music  of 
color  even  as  there  is  a  music  of  sound,  and  there 
should  be  a  delight  in  color  composition  even  as 
there  is  a  delight  in  sound  composition  ;  and  this 

183 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


delight  should  be  something  fundamentally  distinct 
from  any  interest  in  the  subject  of  the  composition. 
The  subject  may  be  a  man,  or  a  woman,  or  a  field, 
or  a  tree,  or  a  wave,  or  a  cloud,  or  just  nothing  at  all 
— mere  masses  or  streaks  of  color  ;  the  perfection  or 
the  imperfection  of  the  color  arrangement  remains 
the  same. 

That  the  color-sense  is  lost  to  laymen,  critics,  and 
painters  is  evidenced  by  the  ridicule  that  for  thirty 
years  was  heaped  upon  Whistler  for  calling  his  pic- 
tures "  harmonies,"  "  symphonies,"  "nocturnes," 
etc.  ;  for  adopting  the  more  or  less  abstract  nomen- 
clature of  sound  compositions — music — to  describe 
color  compositions. 

One  paper  described  them  as  "  some  figure  pieces, 
which  this  artist  exhibits  as  4  harmonies'  in  this,  that, 
or  the  other,  being,  as  they  are,  mere  rubs-in  of 
color,  have  no  claims  to  be  regarded  as  pictures." 
Another  says,  "A  dark  bluish  surface,  with  dots  on 
it,  and  the  faintest  adumbrations  of  shape  under  the 
darkness,  is  gravely  called  a  '  Nocturne  in  Black  and 
Gold.'"  Again,  "Two  of  Mr.  Whistler's  'color- 
symphonies,'  a  '  Nocturne  in  Blue  and  Gold,'  and  a 
'Nocturne  in  Black  and  Gold.'  If  he  did  not  ex- 
hibit these  as  pictures  under  ( peculiar  and,  what 
seems  to  most  people,  pretentious  titles  they  would 
be  entitled  to  their  due  meed  of  admiration.  But 
they  only  come  one  step  nearer  pictures  than  deli- 
cately graduated  tints  on  a  wall-paper  do." 

And  so  in  endless  iteration  and  reiteration. 

It  never  occurred  to  either  painters  or  critics  to 
184 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


judge  the  pictures  as  if  they  were  in  reality  so 
many  "  delicately  graduated  tints  on  a  wall-paper." 
The  color-sense  was  deficient.  The  pictures  were 
judged  by  their  composition,  their  subjects, — or, 
rather,  not  appreciated  at  all,  but  condemned,  on  ac- 
count of  their  titles,  which  expressed  exactly  what  the 
painter  desired  to  convey, — namely,  his  attempts  to 
produce  harmonies  in  color  independently  of  subject. 

So  far  from  Whistler's  titles  being  absurd,  they 
were  so  many  frank  attempts  to  tell  the  public  what 
the  painter  was  really  trying  to  do.  He  might  have 
been  more  obscure,  like  many  a  composer  of  music, 
and  simply  said,  "  Opus  I.,"  or  "  Opus  XX.,"  and  so 
on.  He  did  call  three  of  his  early  pictures  "  Sym- 
phony in  White,  No.  I.,"  "  Symphony  in  White,  No. 
II.,"  and  "  Symphony  in  White,  No.  III.  ;"  but  the 
first,  a  full-length  figure,  was  also  known  as  the 
"  White  Girl"  of  the  "  Salon  des  Refuses,"  1863; 
the  second,  a  three-quarter  length  of  a  young  girl 
in  white,  standing  by  a  mantel,  as  "The  Little 
White  Girl  ;"  while  the  third,  with  no  other  title,  is 
of  two  girls  in  white. 

But  for  the  most  part  he  chose  to  describe  each 
particular  work  as  an  arrangement  of  blue  and  sil- 
ver, or  black  and  gray,  or  flesh-color  and  brown, 
according  to  the  predominating  tones  of  the  compo- 
sition, thereby  aiding  the  eye  of  the  observer. 

There  are  beauties  of  form  devoid  of  color  ; 
There  are  beauties  of  color  devoid  of  form  ; 
There  are  beauties  of  form  and  color  combined. 
185 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


Of  the  foregoing  the  first  is  familiar  in  sculpture, 
and  the  third  is  familiar  in  painting,  but  the  second 
is  scarcely  observed  at  all,  though  color  without 
form  is  found  wherever  color  is  used  decoratively. 

The  ordinary  house-painter  endeavors  to  secure 
agreeable  effects  by  the  mere  arrangement  of  colors. 
The  interior-decorator  endeavors — for  the  most  part 
with  disastrous  results — to  secure  agreeable  effects 
by  the  mere  distribution  of  color.  In  a  crude  way 
the  house-painter,  the  sign-painter,  the  decorator, 
the  dyer,  the  dress-maker,  are  all  color-composers, 
their  object  being  to  produce  harmonies  in  color 
quite  irrespective  of  line  and  form.  They  know 
nothing  about  drawing,  they  know  nothing  about 
modelling,  but  they  try  to  please  the  eye  by  color 
arrangements. 

To  rightly  understand  the  color-sense  let  us  briefly 
consider  the  matter  from  its  scientific  side. 

The  ear  has  a  range  of  musical  sounds  of  from 
sixteen  and  one-half  air-vibrations  per  second — the 
note  of  the  lowest  pipe  of  the  great  organ — to  four 
thousand  seven  hundred  and  fifty-two  vibrations  per 
second,  the  highest  note  of  the  piccolo  of  the 
orchestra, — a  range  of  about  eight  octaves. 

Below  sixteen  and  one-half  vibrations  per  second, 
and  above  four  thousand  seven  hundred  and  fifty- 
two, — as  high,  in  fact,  as  forty  thousand, — sounds 
are  audible,  but  not  musical,  being  either  too  low 
and  throbbing  or  two  high  and  piercing  to  be 
agreeable. 

186 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 

In  all  countries  this  range  of  musical  sounds  is 
divided  into  octaves, — the  octave  of  any  given  note 
having  simply  double  the  number  of  air-vibrations. 

At  the  present  time,  in  the  Western  world,  each 
octave  is  divided,  as  every  one  knows,  into  twelve 
notes,  indicated  on  the  piano  by  the  seven  white 
keys  and  the  five  black. 

For  instance,  the  middle  C  of  the  piano  has  two 
hundred  and  sixty-four  vibrations  per  second,  the  C 
above  has,  of  course,  just  double,  or  five  hundred 
and  twenty-eight  vibrations  per  second.  In  the 
chromatic  scale  these  two  hundred  and  sixty-four 
vibrations,  which  make  the  octave,  are  divided  into 
only  twelve  intervals,  an  average  of  twenty-two 
vibrations  to  the  interval.  In  the  octavo  above  the 
average  would  be  twice  that,  or  forty-four,  and  so 
on  doubling  to  the  end. 

There  is  a  change  in  pitch  with  the  addition  of 
so  much  as  a  fraction  of  a  vibration  per  second. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  musicians  can  detect  the  varia- 
tion of  pitch  caused  by  the  difference  of  half  a 
vibration  per  second  in  the  middle  octaves  ;  the 
power  to  detect  changes  in  pitch  due  to  fractional 
changes  in  vibrations  decreasing  towards  the  bass 
and  treble. 

With  this  power  of  discriminating  a  thousand 
degrees  of  pitch  in  a  single  octave  the  Western 
world  is  content  to  arbitrarily  and  mechanically 
divide  the  octave  into  but  twelve  tones  and  semi- 
tones. 

The  Arabic  octave  contains  twenty-four  quarter- 
187 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


tones,  and  Oriental  nations  generally  take  cogni- 
zance of  intervals  so  small  they  seem  to  us  discords. 

Helmholtz  requested  a  distinguished  musician  to 
investigate  this  matter  in  Cairo,  and  this  is  the 
report : 

' '  This  evening  I  have  been  listening  attentively  to  the 
song  on  the  minarets,  to  try  to  appreciate  the  quarter-tones, 
which  I  had  not  supposed  to  exist,  as  I  had  thought  that  the 
Arabs  sang  out  of  tune.  But  to-day  as  I  was  with  the  der- 
vishes I  became  certain  that  such  quarter -tones  existed,  and 
for  the  following  reasons  :  Many  passages  in  litanies  of  this 
kind  end  with  a  tone  which  was  at  first  the  quarter-tone  and 
ended  in  the  pure  tone.  As  the  passage  was  frequently  re- 
peated, I  was  able  to  observe  this  every  time,  and  I  found 
the  intonation  invariable. ' ' 1 

All  of  which  goes  to  show  how  susceptible  the 
highly-trained  ear  is  to  fine  gradations  and  combina- 
tions of  sound  and  how  easy  it  is  to  become  accus- 
tomed to  coarse  intervals  when  the  finer  are  no 
longer  used. 

The  various  notes  as  sounded  by  a  great  variety 
of  musical  instruments  constitute  the  raw  material 
from  which  the  composer  and  performer  produce 
melodies  and  harmonies  absolutely  unknown  to 
nature,  and  which — judged  by  the  only  possible 
standard,  their  emotional  and  intellectual  effects — 
are  incomparably  finer  than  any  sounds  in  nature, 


1  Helmholtz,  Sensations  of  Tone,  p.  265. 

188 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


finer  because  a  human  utterance,  the  play  of  soul 
upon  soul. 

The  eye  has  a  range  of  color-notes  from  four 
hundred  millions  of  millions  of  ether-vibrations  per 
second,  the  rate  of  the  deepest  red  of  the  spectrum, 
to  seven  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  millions,  the 
rate  of  the  violet  rays.  The  following  table  of 
vibration  rates  of  the  colors  of  the  spectrum  shows 
the  vibration  intervals  which  divide  the  pronounced 
colors  : 1 


Color-sensation.  Ether-vibrations  per  second. 

Deep  red  400  millions  of  millions. 

Red-orange  437  " 

Yellow-orange  457      14  " 

Yellow.  .....    ...  509       "  " 

Green  570      "  44 

Blue-green  617       "  " 

Blue-violet  696      "  " 

Violet  750  *' 


This  color-scale,  as  produced  by  a  great  variety 
of  agents, — such  as  colored  lights,  glass,  stones, 
metals,  fabrics,  dyes,  stains,  pigments,  etc., — consti- 
tutes the  raw  material  from  which  the  color-com- 
poser, painter,  and  decorator  produce  melodies 
and  harmonies  absolutely  unknown  to  nature,  and, 
judged  as  musical  sounds  are  judged,  are  incom- 
parably finer  than  effects  in  nature,  because  essen- 


1  Fleming,  Waves  and  Ripples  in  Water,  Air,  and  ^Ether, 
p.  252. 

189 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


tially  human,  because  produced  by  man  for  their 
emotional  and  intellectual  effect  upon  man. 

Theoretically  the  variation  of  a  single  ether-vibra- 
tion per  second  changes  the  shade  of  the  color ;  but 
while  the  trained  ear  can  detect  the  variation  in 
pitch  due  to  a  half-vibration  of  air  per  second  more 
or  less,  ether-vibrations  are  so  incomparably  more 
rapid  that  the  best  the  trained  eye  can  do  is  detect 
about  one  thousand  different  tints  in  the  spectrum. 
In  other  words,  there  must  be  an  increase  or  de- 
crease of  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  millions 
of  ether-vibrations  before  even  the  practised  eye  is 
consciously  affected. 

It  is,  however,  altogether  likely  that  while  the 
eye  is  not  consciously  affected  without  these  great 
variations  in  frequency,  it  is  unconsciously  affected, 
and  susceptibility  to  and  skill  in  handling  color 
depend  upon  this  unconscious  susceptibility. 

It  is  pretty  well  established  that  the  range  of 
color-vision  cannot  be  materially  extended  below 
the  red  or  above  the  violet  by  practice,  but  suscep- 
tibility to  color  variations  and  the  ability  to  distin- 
guish gradations  of  tone  within  the  scale  can  be 
increased  almost  indefinitely. 

Education  of  the  color-sense  is  the  development 
of  this  unconscious  susceptibility, — of  the  feeling 
for,  as  distinguished  from  a  knowledge  of,  color. 

A  man  may  know  all  about  color  and  have  no 
feeling  for  it.  On  the  other  hand,  a  man  may  be 
singularly  susceptible  to  color-effects  without  being 
able  to  name  correctly  a  dozen  shades. 

190 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


Nothing  educates  the  color-sense  so  much  as 
steady  contemplation  of  color-harmonies  in  nature 
and  art.  But  unless  a  man  possesses  an  instinctive 
feeling  for  color  he  will  never  select  the  best  ex- 
amples ;  whereas  if  his  eye  is  exceedingly  suscepti- 
ble he  will  intuitively  cling  to  the  best  the  world 
affords. 

Whistler  was  gifted  with  susceptibility  to  color  in 
an  extraordinary  degree.  Where,  by  way  of  illustra- 
tion, the  untrained  eye  can  distinguish  one  or  two 
hundred  shades  of  color  in  the  spectrum  and  the 
highly-trained  eye  a  thousand,  Whistler  could  prob- 
ably distingush  two  thousand,  and  possibly  feel  as 
many  more. 

In  fact,  so  keen  was  his  susceptibility  to  color 
that  intervals — to  use,  very  legitimately,  the  musical 
term — quite  imperceptible  to  others  affected  him 
greatly. 

The  neck-tie  of  a  sitter  once  caused  him  no  end 
of  trouble. 

The  suit  the  sitter  was  wearing  was  of  a  light- 
brown  tone ;  the  ulster  was  of  a  darker  Scotch 
plaid, — all  softened  in  tone  by  time  and  wear.  In 
so  many  shades  of  brown  it  certainly  seemed  to  the 
casual  eye  that  the  shade  of  the  brown  silk  tie  the 
sitter  had  on  found  a  place.  But,  no;  to  Whistler  it 
was  a  discordant  note,  though  half  hidden  by  the 
garments.  All  available  ties  were  exhausted, — even 
those  of  friends  and  neighboring  artists  were  levied 

191 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


upon.  Others  could  see  nothing  inharmonious  in 
many  of  the  ties  that  were  tried  ;  but  they  made 
Whistler  positively  uncomfortable, — just  as  uncom- 
fortable as  the  leader  of  an  orchestra  is  when  an  in- 
strument plays  a  discord  ;  and  it  was  not  until  the 
"Bon  Marche"  had  been  ransacked — for,  not  ties, 
but  simply  fabrics  in  shades  of  brown — that  a  piece 
was  found  that  would  answer. 

Then,  mark  you,  the  brown  of  the  tie  was  by  no 
means  reproduced  in  the  portrait,  but  the  brown  as 
modified  by  all  the  browns  and  notes  of  the  entire 
costume,  and  as  still  further  modified  by  all  the 
browns  and  all  the  notes  and  shades  and  lights  of 
the  studio. 

During  this  search  for  a  note  of  brown — a  search 
which  seemed  to  the  sitter,  and  even  to  artist  friends, 
finical  in  the  extreme — the  great  painter  one  after- 
noon justified  himself  by  showing  some  little  pastel 
sketches  of  a  model  with  bits  of  transparent  drapery 
floating  about  her.  The  sketches  were  on  coarse 
brown  board,  and  about  ten  or  twelve  inches  high 
by  five  or  six  wide,  and  there  were  just  a  few  strokes 
of  almost  imperceptible  color  to  indicate  the  flesh 
tones  and  the  draperies,  all  so  slight  as  to  scarce 
attract  notice  ;  and  yet  each  of  the  filmy  bits  of 
drapery  had  been  dyed  by  the  painter  with  as  much 
care  to  secure  the  desired  notes  as  he  would  take  in 
painting  a  portrait. 

No  one  who  has  not  seen  him  at  work  can  form 
any  adequate  notion  of  his  extreme  susceptibility 
to  infinitesimal  variations  of  color ;  it  exceeded  that 

192 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


of  any  painter  of  whom  the  Western  world  has  suffi- 
cient record  for  comparison. 
A  Frenchman  has  said  : 

"  Whistler's  works  are  dreams  of  color.  The  gray  of  them 
is  unique.  It  is  made  of  white,  blue,  green,  of  all  the  tints. 
It  is  the  tender  gray  of  England's  coasts,  of  the  North  Sea, 
and  of  the  sky  that  in  summer  is  above  it  ;  the  horizon  gray 
where  the  pale  blue  of  the  sky  and  the  pale  green  of  the  sea 
unite  and  form  one. 

"It  is  a  subtle  shade,  in  accord  with  the  penumbras  in 
which  he  delighted.  He  was  the  musician  of  the  rainbow. 
No  one  understood  as  well  as  he  the  mysterious  relations  of 
painting  and  of  music,  the  seven  notes  and  the  seven  colors, 
and  the  way  to  play  these  with  the  sharps  and  flats  of  the 
prism.  Even  as  a  symphony  is  in  D  or  a  sonata  is  in  A,  his 
pictures  were  orchestrated  according  to  a  tone, — the  '  Lady 
with  the  Iris,'  for  example,  a  mauve  flower  placed  in  the 
hand  of  the  figure,  as  a  note  and  signifying  that  the  portrait 
was  to  be  a  colored  polyphony  of  lilac  and  of  violets. 

' '  More  precision  is  lent  to  this  curious  aesthetic  by  the 
titles  that  he  gave  to  certain  small  canvases  representing 
twilights  of  Venice  and  of  London,  which  he  entitled  '  Noc- 
turnes,' in  a  parallel  with  those  of  Chopin,  but  of  a  Chopin 
serene  and  who  dreams  instead  of  a  Chopin  ill  and  who 
weeps.  There,  as  in  portraits,  the  gray  of  England's  coasts 
appears,  but  bluer.  It  has  in  portraits  the  tints  of  twilight 
in  ashes.  In  all  his  works  he  reveals  the  land  of  his  origin, 
the  land  that  has  produced  Edgar  Allan  Poe. ' ' 

Many  stories  are  told  illustrating  his  suscepti- 
bility to  color.  Some  of  them  are  pointless  ;  but 
the  fact  they  are  told  at  all  shows  how  this  trait  im- 
pressed both  the  artists  and  the  public. 

"  One  morning  he  had  an  engagement  at  a  banker's,  where 
he  was  to  receive  a  large  sum  of  money  for  a  set  of  etchings, 
*3  193 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


a  sum  that  he  happened  to  need  very  much  at  that  time. 
He  was  busy  chatting  and  showing  some  of  his  things  to  an 
appreciative  visitor,  who  happened  to  know  the  circum- 
stances, and  considerately  reminded  him  that  he  had  far  to 
go  and  that  the  American  would  probably  be  in  a  hurry  and 
would  not  wait. 

"  'Yes,'  said  Whistler  ;  'but  just  look  at  this  now,'  pulling 
forward  another  canvas.  And  so  it  went  on,  until  his  friend 
said  :  '  Whistler,  you  really  must  go  !  That  man  will  never 
wait  for  you.' 

"  '  What  a  nuisance  you  are  !'  he  exclaimed  ;  but  he  got 
ready,  and  they  started. 

"  They  were  tearing  down  the  street  at  a  great  rate,  when 
Whistler  suddenly  stopped  the  cab  and  made  the  driver  go 
back  to  a  certain  spot, — and  they  had  to  go  backwards  and 
forwards  for  quite  a  while  before  they  found  the  exact  place, 
— in  order  to  get  a  view  of  a  certain  little  green-grocer's  shop, 
with  his  fruit  and  vegetables  outside,  striped  awnings,  etc. 

"Whistler  put  up  his  hands  for  a  frame,  squinted  and 
twisted.  'Beautiful!'  he  exclaimed.  'Lovely!  I'm  going 
to  do  that  ;  but  I  think  I'll  have  him  move  the  oranges  over 
to  the  right  more,  and  that  green,  now — let  me  see  ' 

"'Whistler!'  cried  his  friend,  'do  come  along!  That 
man  will  be  home  in  New  York  before  we  get  there  !' 

"  '  What  a  nuisance  you  are  !'  declared  Whistler,  and  was 
sulky  the  rest  of  the  way. 

• '  It  was  not  a  pose.  The  painter  was  so  enchanted  by  what 
he  saw  that  banker  and  money  were  nothing  to  him  at  that 
moment. ' ' 

And  it  is  said  a  visitor  once  found  him  at  work  in 
his  studio. 

"  The  furniture  was  of  a  pale  gray  ;  the  hangings 
were  of  the  same  color  ;  the  window  shades  were 
of  gray  ;  the  model  a  woman  with  gray  eyes,  wear- 

194 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


ing  a  gray  costume  ;  and  the  costume  of  the  painter 
was  also  of  the  same  prevailing  color. 

"  Whistler  refused  to  talk  with  his  visitor  until  he 
had  removed  his  flaming  red  cravat ;  and,  after  a 
few  minutes'  conversation,  commented  upon  the 
fact  that  the  tone  values  of  his  coat  and  trousers 
were  out  of  harmony." 

An  exaggeration,  but  it  all  might  have  occurred  ; 
for  has  he  not  himself  described,  in  "  Gentle  Art," 
how  the  loud  dress  of  a  critic  destroyed  his  exhibi- 
tion. "To  have  seen  him,  O,  my  wise  Atlas,  was 
my  privilege  and  my  misery, — for  he  stood  under 
one  of  my  own  'harmonies,'  already  with  diffi- 
culty gasping  its  gentle  breath,  himself  an  amazing 
'arrangement'  in  strong  mustard-and-cress,  with 
bird's-eye  belcher  of  Reckitt's  blue,  and  then  and 
there  destroyed  absolutely,  unintentionally,  and 
once  for  all,  my  year's  work  !" 

The  analogy  between  the  musical  scale  and  the 
color  scale  has  been  many  times  noted. 
Helmholtz  1  draws  the  following  analogy  : 


F  %  End  of  the  red. 

G  Red. 

G  %  Red. 

A  Red. 

A  ft  Orange -red. 

B  Orange. 


1  Physiological  Optics,  p.  237. 
195 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


c  Yellow. 

c  jf  Green. 

d  Greenish-blue. 

d  #  Cyanogen-blue. 

e  Indigo-blue. 

f  Violet. 

f  J  Violet. 

g  Ultra-violet. 

g  #  Ultra-violet. 

a  Ultra-violet. 

a  #  Ultra-violet. 

b  End  of  the  solar  spectrum. 


There  is,  of  course,  this  fundamental  difference 
between  the  two  senses  :  the  action  of  air-waves 
upon  the  ear  is  mechanical,  simply  a  succession  of 
beats,  while  the  action  of  ether-waves  upon  the 
retina  is  chemical  in  its  character. 

The  true  analogy  lies  in  the  simple  fact  that  the 
ear  is  susceptible  to  certain  sounds  produced  by  air- 
waves of  certain  frequencies,  while  the  eye  is  sus- 
ceptible to  certain  colors  produced  by  ether-waves 
of  certain  frequencies,  and  it  is  possible  to  mechani- 
cally combine  in  one  case  the  sounds  so  as  to  pro- 
duce harmonies  that  please  the  ear,  and  in  the  other 
case  the  colors  so  as  to  produce  harmonies  that 
please  the  eye  ;  and  so  far  as  pure  sound  and  pure 
color  is  concerned,  the  harmonious  compositions 
need  have  no  relation,  imitative  or  otherwise,  to 
anything  in  nature. 

The  uneducated  ear  prefers  melodies  which  are 
more  or  less  suggestive  of  sounds  heard  in  nature, — 

196 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


more  or  less  realistic  imitations  of  songs  of  birds, 
rippling  of  waters,  falling  of  rain,  rustling  of  leaves, 
crashing  of  thunder,  etc.  ;  or  if  familiar  sounds  are 
not  imitated,  the  title  of  the  composition  must  sug- 
gest some  incident,  place,  or  scene  more  or  less 
familiar,  so  the  deficient  ear  may  be  helped  out  by 
the  imagination. 

The  highly-trained  ear,  on  the  other  hand,  delights 
in  abstract  compositions  of  sound,  in  harmonies 
which  have  no  perceptible  relation  to  any  sound  in 
nature,  and  which  do  not  suggest  any  person,  scene, 
or  incident  in  literature  or  history. 

The  purer  the  taste  in  music  the  more  abstract  the 
compositions  that  satisfy. 

So  far  as  the  appreciation  of  color  harmonies  is 
concerned,  the  taste  of  the  Western  world  is  like  unto 
that  of  the  uneducated  ear  in  music. 

We  are  not  content  with  pure  color  compositions 
as  we  are  with  pure  sound,  but  we  demand  either 
imitations  of  natural  objects  or  representations  of 
historical,  literary,  religious,  or  emotional  subjects. 
We  must  have  something  besides  pure  line  and  color. 

A  musician  may  strike  a  succession  of  notes,  or  a 
chord,  and  we  are  pleased,  the  ear  is  satisfied  ;  but 
if  the  painter  simply  sweeps  his  brush  several  times 
across  the  canvas,  we  are  not  satisfied,  though  the 
combination  of  colors  be  something  more  beautiful 
and  harmonious  than  anything  ever  seen.  It  is  not 
a  "picture"  to  us;  it  lacks  the  " subject"  to  which 
we  are  accustomed. 

And  yet  there  are  in  existence  certain  canvases 
197 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


by  Whistler  which  are  little  more  than  color-schemes, 
and  which  in  color-effects  are  among  the  most  beau- 
tiful things  he  ever  painted  ;  and  in  all  the  galleries 
of  Europe  there  is  nothing  to  compare  with  them 
in  pure  joyousness  of  color. 

As  children  and  men  we  enjoy  the  color-effects 
of  fireworks  against  the  blackness  of  night,  and  we 
enjoy  the  darkness  and  the  shadows  about  us,  the 
sudden  light  upon  expectant  faces,  the  dark-moving 
figures  in  the  intervals.  All  this  is  delight  in  color, — 
color  without  sentiment,  color  without  story,  color 
without  other  thought  or  reflection  than  pure  sen- 
suous enjoyment ;  and  we  even  feel  the  tawdry 
cheapness  of  the  attempt  when  by  set  arrangement 
the  features  of  some  local  or  national  celebrity  are 
presented.  But  when  an  artist  who  sees  such  a  night- 
scene  and  paints  it  in  such  manner  that  the  color- 
scheme  is  preserved  and  its  beauty  enhanced  in  trans- 
lation, we  demand  something  more.  We  demand, 
as  did  Burne-Jones,  "  detail  and  composition," — in 
short,  we  demand  the  features  of  our  local  celebrity. 

Until  we  learn  to  love  color,  as  we  love  music,  for 
its  own  sake,  there  will  never  be  any  decorations  of 
homes  and  public  buildings  that  will  be  worth  while. 

In  days  long  gone  by,  in  Italy  during  the  Renais- 
sance and  before,  in  Greece  during  the  Golden  Age, 
color  was  enjoyed  for  the  sake  of  color,  regardless 
of  the  dictates  of  nature.  If  an  Italian  felt  like 
making  a  background  of  blue  or  gold,  he  did  so  ; 
if  a  Greek  felt  like  painting  and  gilding  his  sculpture, 

198 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


he  did  so,  until  the  Parthenon  and  its  contents  must 
have  been  gorgeous  with  color,  laid  on,  not  after  the 
precepts  of  nature,  but  for  the  most  part  arbitrarily, 
to  please  the  eye. 

All  decoration  begins  with  nature  and  ends  in 
convention. 

In  this  progress  from  birth  in  the  imitation  of 
natural  forms  and  colors  to  death  in  the  rigidity  of 
a  hard  and  lifeless  convention  there  is  a  maturity 
wherein  lines  and  contours  and  colors  play  with 
perfect  freedom,  original  forms  and  models  being 
absorbed  in  the  finer  creations  of  the  imagination. 

Ruskin  habitually  confused  the  use  of  color  with 
the  painting  of  light ;  while  in  truth  there  is  no 
necessary  connection  at  all  between  colorists  and 
lightists, — to  coin  a  word  that  will  very  legitimately 
mark  a  distinction. 

The  painting  of  light  is  the  distinguishing  feature 
of  nineteenth-century  art,  and  Turner  was  the 
apostle  crying  in  the  wilderness  of  darkness  ;  he 
was  the  first  to  successfully  attempt  the  realization 
of  sunlight.  He  keyed  his  palette  up  with  the  sun 
as  the  objective  point,  while  the  Italians  who  had 
influenced  him  had  keyed  theirs  up  simply  to  pro- 
duce color-effects.  They  decorated  walls  and  altars 
and  painted  pictures — as  a  potter  decorates  his 
earthen  bowl — to  please  the  eye. 

Although  Ruskin  habitually  speaks  of  Turner  as 
a  colorist,  and  undoubtedly  says  a  great  many  fine 
things  concerning  color,  he  did  not  care  at  all  for 

199 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


color  apart  from  the  delineation  of  form.  To  him 
color  was  useful  only  as  a  mode  of  drawing  ;  in 
itself  it  was  as  nothing  at  all. 

Speaking  of  his  so-called  "truths"  of  color,  he 
says  : 

"All  truths  of  color  sink  at  once  into  the  second  rank. 
He,  therefore,  who  has  neglected  a  truth  of  form  for  a  truth 
of  color  has  neglected  a  great  truth  for  a  less  one. 

• '  That  color  is  indeed  a  most  unimportant  characteristic 
of  objects  will  be  farther  evident  on  the  slightest  considera- 
tion. The  color  of  plants  is  constantly  changing  with  the 
season,  and  of  everything  with  the  quality  of  light  falling 
on  it ;  but  the  nature  and  essence  of  the  thing  are  indepen- 
dent of  these  changes.  An  oak  is  an  oak,  whether  green 
with  spring  or  red  with  winter  ;  a  dahlia  is  a  dahlia,  whether 
it  be  yellow  or  crimson  ;  and  if  some  monster-hunting  botanist 
should  ever  frighten  the  flower  blue,  still  it  will  be  a  dahlia  ; 
but  let  one  curve  of  the  petals,  one  groove  of  the  stamens, 
be  wanting,  and  the  flower  ceases  to  be  the  same."  1 

"The  most  convincing  proof  of  the  unimportance  of  color 
lies  in  the  accurate  observation  of  the  way  in  which  any 
material  object  impresses  itself  on  the  mind.  If  we  look  at 
nature  carefully  we  shall  find  that  her  colors  are  in  a  state 
of  perpetual  confusion  and  indistinctness,  while  her  forms,  as 
told  by  light  and  shade,  are  invariably  clear,  distinct,  and 
speaking.  The  stones  and  gravel  of  the  bank  catch  green 
reflections  from  the  boughs  above  ;  the  bushes  receive  grays 
and  yellows  from  the  ground  ;  every  hairbreadth  of  polished 
surface  gives  a  little  bit  of  the  blue  sky  or  the  gold  of  the  sun, 
like  a  star  upon  the  local  color  ;  this  local  color,  changeful 
and  uncertain  in  itself,  is  again  disguised  and  modified  by 
the  hue  of  the  light  or  quenched  in  the  gray  of  the  shadow  ; 
and  the  confusion  and  blending  of  tint  is  altogether  so  great 


1  Modern  Painters,  vol.  i.,  partii.,  sec.  i.,  chap,  v.,  par.  3. 
200 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


that  were  we  left  to  find  out  what  objects  were  by  their  colors 
only,  we  would  scarcely  in  places  distinguish  the  boughs  of  a 
tree  from  the  air  beyond  them  or  the  ground  beneath  them." 

"We  shall  see  hereafter,  in  considering  ideas  of  beauty, 
that  color,  even  as  a  source  of  pleasure,  is  feeble  compared  to 
form.  But  this  we  cannot  insist  upon  at  present, — we  have 
only  to  do  with  simple  truth  ;  and  the  observations  we  have 
made  are  sufficient  to  prove  that  the  artist  who  sacrifices  or 
forgets  a  truth  of  form  in  the  pursuit  of  a  truth  of  color  sac- 
rifices what  is  definite  to  what  is  uncertain  and  what  is 
essential  to  what  is  accidental."  1 

"It  is,  indeed,  by  this  that  the  works  of  Turner  are 
peculiarly  distinguished  from  those  of  all  other  colorists, — by 
the  dazzling  intensity,  namely,  of  the  light  which  he  sheds 
through  every  hue,  and  which,  far  more  than  their  brilliant 
color,  is  the  real  source  of  their  overpowering  effect  upon  the 
eye,  an  effect  so  reasonably  made  the  subject  of  perpetual 
animadversion,  as  if  the  sun  which  they  represent  were  a 
quiet,  and  subdued,  and  gentle,  and  manageable  luminary, 
and  never  dazzled  anybody,  under  any  circumstances  what- 
soever. I  am  fond  of  standing  by  a  bright  Turner  in  the 
Academy,  to  listen  to  the  unintentional  compliments  of  the 
crowd, — 'What  a  glaring  thing  !'  '  I  declare  I  can't  look  at 
it !'  •  Don't  it  hurt  your  eyes  ?' — expressed  as  if  they  were  in 
the  constant  habit  of  looking  the  sun  full  in  the  face  with 
the  most  perfect  comfort  and  entire  facility  of  vision.  It  is 
curious  after  hearing  people  malign  some  of  Turner' s  noble 
passages  of  light  to  pass  to  some  really  ungrammatical  and 
false  pictures  of  the  old  masters  in  which  we  have  color  given 
without  light. ' ' 2 

"What  I  am  next  about  to  say  with  respect  to  Turner's 
color  I  should  wish  to  be  received  with  caution,  as  it  admits 


1  Modern  Painters,  vol.  i.,  partii.,  sec.  i.,  chap,  v.,  par.  8,  9. 

2  Ibid.,  sec.  ii.,  chap,  ii.,  par.  12. 

201 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


of  dispute.  I  think  that  the  first  approach  to  viciousness  of 
color  in  any  master  is  commonly  indicated  chiefly  by  a  prev- 
alence of  purple  and  an  absence  of  yellow.  I  think  nature 
mixes  yellow  with  almost  every  one  of  her  hues,  never,  or 
very  rarely,  using  red  without  it,  but  frequently  using  yellow 
with  scarcely  any  red  ;  and  I  believe  it  will  be  in  consequence 
found  that  her  favorite  opposition,  that  which  generally  char- 
acterizes and  gives  tone  to  her  color,  is  yellow  and  black, 
passing,  as  it  retires,  into  white  and  blue.  It  is  beyond  dis- 
pute that  the  great  fundamental  opposition  of  Rubens  is  yel- 
low and  black,  and  that  on  this,  concentrated  in  one  part 
of  the  picture  and  modified  in  various  grays  throughout, 
chiefly  depend  the  tones  of  all  his  finest  works.  And  in 
Titian,  though  there  is  a  far  greater  tendency  to  the  purple 
than  in  Rubens,  I  believe  no  red  is  ever  mixed  with  the  pure 
blue,  or  glazed  over  it,  which  has  not  in  it  a  modifying  quan- 
tity of  yellow.  At  all  events,  I  am  nearly  certain  that  what- 
ever rich  and  pure  purples  are  introduced  locally  by  the  great 
colorists  nothing  is  so  destructive  of  all  fine  color  as  the 
slightest  tendency  to  purple  in  general  tone  ;  and  I  am 
equally  certain  that  Turner  is  distinguished  from  all  the 
vicious  colorists  of  the  present  day  by  the  foundation  of  all 
his  tones  being  black,  yellow,  and  the  intermediate  grays, 
while  the  tendency  of  our  common  glare-seekers  is  invariably 
to  pure,  cold,  impossible  purples. 

' '  Powerful  and  captivating  and  faithful  as  his  color  is,  it 
is  the  least  important  of  all  his  excellences,  because  it  is  the 
least  important  feature  of  nature.  He  paints  in  color,  but 
he  thinks  in  light  and  shade  ;  and,  were  it  necessary,  rather 
than  lose  one  line  of  his  forms  or  one  ray  of  his  sunshine, 
would,  I  apprehend,  be  content  to  paint  in  black  and  white 
to  the  end  of  his  life. ' ' 1 


1  Modern  Painters,  vol.  i.,  part  ii.,  sec.  ii.,  chap,  ii.,  par. 
17,  20. 

202 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


For  practical  purposes  truths  of  form  are  more 
essential  than  '  truths'  of  color  ;  to  mistake  the  size, 
shape,  solidity,  and  texture  of  anything  is  far  more 
disastrous  than  to  mistake  its  color.  The  color- 
blind get  on  very  well  in  the  world,  often  without 
knowing  their  defect ;  but  a  person  who  was  form- 
blind  would  not  get  on  at  all. 

The  correct  appreciation  of  form  is  of  such  vital 
importance  that  two  senses  are  brought  to  bear, — the 
sense  of  touch — the  parent  sense — as  well  as  the 
sense  of  sight ;  and  without  the  co-operation  of  the 
sense  of  touch,  sight  would  be  comparatively  help- 
less in  recognizing  solidity,  texture,  contours,  etc. 
In  the  appreciation  of  form  touch  gets  on  very  well 
without  sight,  while  sight  could  not  get  on  at  all 
without  touch  ;  but,  happily,  a  sense  so  precious  is 
never  completely  lost. 

Ruskin  constantly  uses  the  phrases,  "truths  of 
form,"  "truths  of  color,"  and  it  is  apparent  that  by 
these  phrases  he  really  means  fidelity  to  natural 
effects.  With  him  a  drawing,  be  it  of  a  stone,  a  leaf, 
a  tree,  a  mountain,  is  not  true  unless  it  corresponds 
to  the  thing  in  nature  ;  nor  is  a  light  or  a  shadow 
or  a  color  true  unless  it  corresponds  to  the  effect  in 
nature. 

Now,  so  far  as  art  is  concerned,  those  so-called 
"  truths"  are  of  the  least  importance. 

Suppose  a  musician  were  to  talk  of  "  truths  of 
sound,"  meaning  thereby  the  more  or  less  faithful 
imitation  of  the  songs  of  birds,  the  rippling  of 
waters,   the   roll  of  thunder.     Every  one  would 

203 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


know  that  his  art  was  of  the  most  primitive  char- 
acter. 

"  Truths  of  sound,"  in  the  sense  that  Ruskin 
speaks  of  "truths  of  form"  and  "truths  of  color," 
are  not  tolerated  in  music.  To  attain  certain  effects, 
dramatic  in  character,  imitations  of  sounds  in  nature 
are  sometimes  introduced,  but  sparingly,  and  unless 
with  great  skill  the  effect  is  disagreeable  to  even  the 
uneducated  ear,  and  if  pressed  too  far  it  becomes 
grotesque. 

One  art  is  like  unto  another,  and  what  are  really 
"truths"  in  one  are  "truths"  in  another.  It  is  im- 
material whether  the  sense  of  hearing,  sight,  or 
touch  is  appealed  to  ;  it  does  not  matter  whether  it 
is  a  composition  of  sound,  of  color,  of  line,  or  of 
form  that  is  under  consideration,  the  fundamental 
principles"  of  the  art  are  the  same  ;  and  one  of  the 
fundamental  propositions  is  :  imitation  is  fatal  to 
pure  art. 

It  is  the  business  of  art  to  improve  on  nature,  to 
take  the  raw  materials  nature  furnishes — her  forces, 
her  forms,  her  lines,  her  colors,  her  lights  and 
shadows,  her  sounds,  her  odors,  her  flavors — and  pro- 
duce from  them  harmonious  and  agreeable  effects 
unknown  to  nature. 

Whistler  has  said  : 

"The  imitator  is  a  poor  kind  of  creature.  If  the  man 
who  paints  only  the  tree  or  flower  or  other  surface  he  sees 
before  him  were  an  artist,  the  king  of  artists  would  be  the 
photographer.  It  is  for  the  artist  to  do  something  beyond 
this  :  in  portrait-painting  to  put  on  canvas  something  more 

204 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


than  the  face  the  model  wears  for  that  one  day, — to  paint  the 
man,  in  short,  as  well  as  his  features  ;  in  arrangement  of 
colors  to  treat  a  flower  as  his  key,  not  as  his  model."1 

Art  begins  with  "  truths,"  in  the  Ruskin  sense, 
and  flowers  in  "harmonies,"  in  the  Whistler  sense. 
It  begins  with  the  concrete,  with  imitation,  with 
fidelity  to  natural  effects,  and  it  develops  by  a 
process  of  abstraction  until  it  attains  the  chaste 
perfection  of  a  Greek  temple  or  a  Beethoven  sym- 
phony. 

Nature  is  never  left  entirely  behind,  and  some 
arts  are  more  dependent  upon  her  than  others  ;  but, 
generally  speaking,  the  more  abstract  the  art  the 
higher  it  is  ;  the  purer  and  freer  it  is  from  imitation 
or  suggestion  of  natural  effects,  the  nobler  its 
attainment.  Because  poetry  and  music  are  almost 
entirely  independent  of  nature  and  natural  effects, 
do  they  as  arts,  from  one  point  of  view,  outrank 
sculpture  and  painting. 

Ruskin,  of  course,  was  by  no  means  blind  to 
these  considerations,  and  when  he  talked  of  "  truths 
of  form"  and  "truths  of  color"  he  did  not  mean 
literal  imitation,  but  he  did  mean  the  fidelity  of  a 
draughtsman,  of  a  man  whose  eye  and  mind  were  on 
the  thing  or  effect  before  him  ;  and  his  great  work  is 
one  long  attempt  to  show  that  Turner  in  his  brilliant 
and  fanciful  compositions  was  still  clinging  close  to 


1  Gentle  Art,  p.  128. 
205 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


nature,  that  he  painted  rocks  and  trees  and  clouds 
and  sunlight  as  they  really  were,  and  more  beautifully 
than  any  man  before  or  since. 

All  of  which  goes  to  show  that  Turner  was  not 
a  colorist  in  the  sense  Whistler  was. 

The  one  used  color  as  a  means,  the  other  as  an 
end.  To  the  one  color,  like  line,  or  like  black  and 
white,  was  incidental  to  his  composition — the  com- 
position, the  conception,  the  dream,  the  fancy, — 
in  short,  the  subject,  being  all  important.  To  the 
other  harmonies  in  color  was  the  end  in  view,  almost 
to  the  exclusion  in  some  of  the  nocturnes  of  line 
and  of  form. 

To  Ruskin,  even  more  than  with  Turner,  color 
was  simply  a  means  to  an  end, — the  more  perfect 
imitation  of  nature  ;  hence  his  utter  lack  of  sympa- 
thy for  Whistler's  work. 

To  pure  color  arrangements  Ruskin  was  blind.  He 
demanded  a  relation  and  significance  beyond  the 
mere  color  harmony.  Lines  or  waves  of  color  placed 
side  by  side  arbitrarily,  and  with  no  more  relation  to 
nature  than  so  many  notes  of  music,  had  no  mean- 
ing for  him,  whereas  for  Whistler  they  meant 
practically  all  there  is  to  the  science  and  art  of 
color. 

To  Ruskin  the  blue  hair  of  a  Greek  statue  would 
have  seemed  absurd  and  childish  ;  to  the  Greek  it 
would  have  been  simply  a  color-note  in  the  place 
where  it  was  needed  to  perfect  the  color-scheme. 

So  utterly  wanting  is  the  sense  of  color-music  in 
the  modern  world  that  we  like  our  sculpture  in 

206 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


either  ghastly  marble,  or,  still  more  perversely,  with 
the  yellow  hues  and  dirt  and  dinginess  wrought  by 
time  and  the  elements,  whereas  those  who  created 
the  greatest  sculpture  known  subdued  all  garish 
qualities  by  the  use  of  gold  and  bronze  and  color, 
not  imitatively,  but  arbitrarily,  to  please  a  highly 
cultivated  fancy. 

From  descriptions  of  Ruskin's  home,  "  Brant- 
wood,"  it  is  clear  that  he  had  no  craving  for  har- 
monious effects  about  him.  Discords  did  not  disturb 
him  ;  he  could  return  with  no  sensations  of  discom- 
fort from  the  keen  appreciation  of  natural  beauties 
to  rooms  which  would  be  intolerable  to  any  one 
like  Whistler  with  an  instinct  for  proportion  and 
color. 

The  house  had  "  a  stucco  classic  portico  in  the 
corner,  painted  and  grained  and  heaped  around 
with  lucky  horseshoes,  highly  black-leaded."  The 
incongruity  of  the  painting  and  graining — so  con- 
trary to  all  Ruskin's  teachings — and  black-leaded 
horseshoes  surprised  even  his  friendly  biographer. 

His  own  room  "he  papered  with  naturalistic 
fancies  to  his  own  taste,"  and  on  the  walls  were  "a 
Durer  engraving,  some  Prouts  and  Turners,  a  couple 
of  old  Venetian  heads,  and  Meissonier's  '  Napo- 
leon,' " — a  typical  collector's  conglomeration. 

The  walls  of  the  dining-room  were  painted  "  duck- 
egg,"  whatever  that  color  may  be,  and  covered  with 
an  even  more  heterogeneous  collection  of  pictures, 
— "the  'Doge  of  Gritta,'  a  bit  saved  from  the  great 

207 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


Titian  that  was  burnt  in  the  fire  at  the  Ducal 
Palace  in  1574  ;  a  couple  of  Tintorets  ;  Turner  and 
Reynolds,  each  painted  by  himself  in  youth  ;  Ra- 
phael, by  a  pupil,  so  it  is  said  ;  portraits  of  old  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Ruskin  and  little  John  and  his  '  boo 
hills/  " 

His  study  was  "  papered  with  a  pattern  specially 
copied  from  Marco  Marziali's  '  Circumcision'  in  the 
National  Gallery,  and  hung  with  Turners."  There 
was  a  crimson  arm-chair  and  a  "  polished-steel 
fender,  very  unartistic,"  his  biographer  remarks  ; 
"  red  mahogany  furniture,  with  startling  shiny  em- 
erald leather  chair-cushions  ;  red  carpet  and  green 
curtains."  This  is  the  sort  of  room  wherein  Ruskin 
worked  and  wrote.  It  simply  illustrates  the  truth 
that  it  is  one  thing  to  write  and  talk  about  color  and 
a  far  different  thing  to  really  feel  color. 

It  is  the  custom  to  call  every  man  who  paints  in 
high  key  or  uses  brilliant  colors  a  colorist,  as  Rus- 
kin called  Turner  and  Rubens  colorists  ;  but  it  is 
not  the  mere  use  of  color  that  makes  a  man  a 
colorist,  but  the  use  he  makes  of  it,  the  object  he 
has  in  mind  in  using  it. 

The^  mechanical  draughtsman  and  the  architect 
may  use  on  their  plans  and  designs  all  the  known 
colors,  but  no  one  would  think  of  calling  either  a 
colorist 

In  painting  still-life  a  man  may  exhaust  the  palette 
and  yet  be  no  colorist.  In  painting  portraits  one 
man  may  require  his  sitters  to  dress  in  bright  colors, 

208 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


another  in  sober  blacks,  grays,  or  browns,  with  the 
result  that  one  set  of  portraits  fairly  dazzle  the  be- 
holder, while  the  other  scarce  attracts  attention  ;  and 
yet  the  former  may  not  be  the  work  of  a  colorist 
while  the  latter  may. 

The  determining  factor  is  the  attitude  of  the 
painter  towards  color.  If  he  uses  color  imitatively, 
or  as  incidental  to  drawing,  or  as  a  means  to  some 
end  other  than  the  production  of  color  harmonies, 
he  is  not  a  colorist ;  but  if  his  delight  is  in  color,  if 
he  uses  color  for  the  sake  of  color,  for  the  sake  of 
charming  the  eye,  as  the  ear  is  charmed  by  music, 
then  he  is  a  colorist. 

No  hard  and  fast  line  of  demarcation  can  be 
drawn,  since  every  painter  is  something  of  a  color- 
ist ;  but  between  the  two  extremes  of  the  painter  on 
one  hand  who  uses  color  imitatively  or  as  incidental 
to  drawing  and  the  colorist  who  produces  and  de- 
lights in  pure  color  schemes  and  harmonies  there  is 
a  wide  interval. 

Whistler,  in  his  love  of  color,  approached  the  lat- 
ter extreme  ;  but  it  was  only  when  he  practised 
decoration  that  he  could  indulge  his  fancy  without 
limitations.  When  he  brought  the  Leyland  dining- 
room  into  harmony  with  his  "  Princess  of  the  Land 
of  Porcelain"  by  the  use  of  blue  and  gold,  line 
and  form — though  somewhat  apparent — were  virtu- 
ally negligible  quantities  ;  and  when  he  arranged 
the  reception-room  of  the  house  in  Rue  du  Bac,  and 
his  own  studio,  the  only  considerations  were  the 
color-effects. 

j4  209 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


In  his  "White  Girl"  of  1863  Whistler  began  in 
a  large  way  his  symphonies  in  color  ;  and  while  in 
pictures  like  the  "Thames  in  Ice,"  "The  Music 
Room,"  and  "At  the  Piano"  he  painted  along 
more  conventional  lines,  these  departures  were  in- 
frequent and  in  themselves  exhibited  his  predilec- 
tion for  color.  It  was  simply  impossible  for  him  to 
paint  any  picture  without  making  the  color  harmony 
a  prime  object. 

Not  long  after  the  "White  Girl,"  which  was 
"Symphony  in  White,  No.  I.,"  followed  the  other 
experiments  in  white,  known  as  Symphonies  Nos. 
II.  and  III. 

Then  came — the  chronological  order  is  not  im- 
portant— the  Japanese  group,  "The  Princess  of  the 
Land  of  Porcelain,"  "The  Gold  Screen,"  "The 
Balcony,"  the  "  Lange  Leizen,"  and  others,  in  which 
the  figures  and  accessories,  though  still  promi- 
nent, were  made  subordinate  to  the  brilliant  color 
schemes.  The  compositions  were  still  obvious,  but 
the  color  incomparably  more  so. 

Then  the  "Nocturnes,"  in  which  detail  and  com- 
position were  refined  away,  and  little  remained  but 
color-effects  so  exquisite  that  they  seemed,  and  still 
seem,  beyond  the  power  of  brush,  and  more  like 
some  thin  glazes  and  enamels  than  paintings  on 
canvas. 

As  music  in  color  the  "Nocturnes"  and  certain 
of  the  "Harmonies"  and  "Symphonies,"  wherein 
detail  is  as  nothing  and  the  color  everything,  are 
Whistler's  most  exquisite — the  word  is  used  ad- 

210 


of  james  a.  McNeill  whistler 


visedly — achievements.  Others  will  equal  his  por- 
traits before  they  equal  his  "Nocturnes." 

As  a  still  further  step  towards  pure  color  compo- 
sition he  had  in  mind  for  years  a  series  of  pictures, 
pure  creations  of  fancy,  somewhat  suggestive  of  the 
Japanese  group,  but  less  realistic — just  color-music. 
Happily,  the  sketches  are  in  existence,  and  afford 
some  indication  of  the  color-dreams  that  floated 
through  the  great  painter's  imagination.  They  show 
how  musical  color  is  when  freed  from  entangling 
associations  and  used  broadly  and  decoratively. 

We  have,  then,  the  following  phases,  rather  than 
"  periods,"  in  his  mastery  of  color  : 

1.  That  wherein  composition  and  detail  predomi- 
nate, though  color  is  the  motive. 

2.  That  wherein  composition  and  detail  are  still 
conspicuous,  but  are  subordinate  to  the  color 
scheme. 

3.  That  wherein  composition  and  detail  are 
practically  lost  in  the  effort  to  produce  subtle  color 
harmonies. 

4.  That  wherein  the  sole  object  is  color-music, 
quite  regardless  of  other  considerations. 

This  progress  from  the,  so  to  speak,  tentative  use 
of  color  in  connection  with  more  or  less  conven- 
tional composition  to  the  triumph  of  color  and  sup- 
pression of  composition  is  abundantly  illustrated  in 
his  works.  It  would  not  be  difficult  to  arrange  an 
exhibition  of  four  groups  of  about  three  canvases 
each,  which  would  illustrate  each  phase.    Such  an 

211 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


exhibition  would  do  more  to  enlighten  the  public 
regarding  his  work  than  any  number  of  exhibitions 
of  a  large  number  of  pictures  gathered  and  grouped 
in  the  usual  way. 

Regarding  the  use  of  flat  tones  he  is  reported  to 
have  once  said  : 

"House-painters  have  the  right  idea  about  paint- 
ing, God  bless  them." 

How  far  removed  from  Ruskin,  who  said  : 

"  Hence,  wherever  in  a  painting  we  have  unva- 
ried color  extended  even  over  a  small  space,  there 
is  falsehood.  Nothing  can  be  natural  which  is  mo- 
notonous ;  nothing  true  which  only  tells  one  story." 

To  Ruskin  nature  was  all  in  all ;  to  Whistler 
color  was  of  first  consideration.  The  one  looked  at 
color  to  find  natural  effects  ;  the  other  looked  at 
nature  to  find  color-effects. 

Whistler  chose  intuitively  those  scenes  and  those 
hours  of  the  day  when  he  would  be  least  hampered 
by  rigid  requirements  of  line  and  form. 

He  frequently  painted  the  sea  under  strong  light ; 
but  under  any  light  water  presents  itself  in  broken 
lines  and  large  masses. 

He  was  a  master  of  line  in  the  high  sense  that 
with  a  few  lines  he  could  render  not  only  the  char- 
acter but  the  characteristics  of  whatever  was  before 
him.  He  was  a  master  of  form, — even  as  Ruskin 
uses  the  term, — since  he  could,  when  the  conditions 
required  it,  express  the  most  subtle  contours  in 
terms  of  light  and  shade  and  color ;  but  he  cared 

212 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


less  for  the  bald  realities  of  sunlight  than  for  the 
shadows  of  dusk  and  the  mysteries  of  night. 
He  has  himself  said : 

' '  The  sun  blares,  the  wind  blows  from  the  east,  the  sky  is 
bereft  of  cloud,  and  without  all  is  of  iron.  The  windows  of 
the  Crystal  Palace  are  seen  from  all  points  of  London.  The 
holiday-maker  rejoices  in  the  glorious  day,  and  the  painter 
turns  aside  to  shut  his  eyes. 

"  How  little  this  is  understood,  and  how  dutifully  the 
casual  in  nature  is  accepted  as  sublime,  may  be  gathered 
from  the  unlimited  admiration  daily  produced  by  a  very 
foolish  sunset. 

"  The  dignity  of  the  snow-capped  mountain  is  lost  in  dis- 
tinctness, but  the  joy  of  the  tourist  is  to  recognize  the  trav- 
eller on  the  top.  The  desire  to  see  for  the  sake  of  seeing 
is,  with  the  mass,  alone  the  one  to  be  gratified,  hence  the 
delight  in  detail. 

"And  when  the  evening  mist  clothes  the  riverside  with 
poetry,  as  with  a  veil,  and  the  poor  buildings  lose  themselves 
in  the  dim  sky,  and  the  tall  chimneys  become  campanili, 
and  the  warehouses  are  palaces  in  the  night,  and  the  whole 
city  hangs  in  the  heavens,  and  fairy-land  is  before  us, — then 
the  wayfarer  hastens  home  ;  the  working-man  and  the  cul- 
tured one,  the  wise  man  and  the  one  of  pleasure  cease  to 
understand,  as  they  have  ceased  to  see  ;  and  Nature,  who, 
,  for  once,  has  sung  in  tune,  sings  her  exquisite  song  to  the 
artist  alone,  her  son  and  her  master, — her  son  in  that  he 
loves  her,  her  master  in  that  he  knows  her."1 

And  it  was  his  habit  to  paint  when  the  studio  was 
filled  with  gloom  and  lengthening  shadows  crept 
across  the  floor ;  when  it  was  so  dark  the  dull  eye 


1  Gentle  Art,  pp.  143,  144. 
213 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


of  sitter  or  chance  visitor  could  scarce  distinguish 
the  figure  on  the  canvas. 

This  "  painting  in  the  dark,"  as  some  have  called 
it,  was  a  singular  trait.  He  would  paint  with  in- 
creasing force  and  effect  as  the  room  became  darker 
and  darker,  until  it  seemed  as  if  the  falling  of  night 
was  an  inspiration. 

Once  a  sitter  asked  him  how  it  was  possible  to 
paint  when  it  was  so  dark. 

"  As  the  light  fades  and  the  shadows  deepen  all 
petty  and  exacting  details  vanish,  everything  trivial 
disappears,  and  I  see  things  as  they  are  in  great 
strong  masses  :  the  buttons  are  lost,  but  the  gar- 
ment remains  ;  the  garment  is  lost,  but  the  sitter 
remains  ;  the  sitter  is  lost,  but  the  shadow  remains  ; 
the  shadow  is  lost,  but  the  picture  remains.  And  that 
night  cannot  efface  from  the  painter's  imagination." 

People  never  could  understand  his  attitude  towards 
nature.  When  he  spoke  of  the  "  unlimited  admira- 
tion daily  produced  by  a  very  foolish  sunset,"  and 
how  "the  dignity  of  the  snow-capped  mountain  is 
lost  in  distinctness,  but  the  joy  of  the  tourist  is  to 
recognize  the  traveller  on  the  top,"  he  at  once  puz- 
zled and  irritated  the  lay  mind,  for  is  not  the  sunset 
beautiful?  and  the  traveller  on  the  highest  peak 
of  greater  interest  than  the  mountain  ? 

When  a  lady  one  day  rushed  up  to  him  and  en- 
thusiastically exclaimed  : 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Whistler,  I  have  just  been  up  the  river, 
and  it  reminded  me  so  much  of  your  pictures." 

214 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


And  he  replied  : 

"Indeed  !  Then,  Nature  is  looking  up," — people 
resented  it  as  vanity. 

But  it  was  not  vanity.  It  was  simply  his  attitude 
towards  nature  and  art. 

If  some  one  had  said  to  Mendelssohn,  "  I  have 
just  been  in  the  woods  and  heard  sounds  that  were 
just  like  some  of  your  "  Songs  without  Words," 
Mendelssohn  would  have  been  surprised,  and  might 
well  have  replied,  "Then,  the  birds  are  doing  better." 

Concerning  nature,  Whistler  said  : 

• '  That  nature  is  always  right  is  an  assertion  artistically 
as  untrue  as  it  is  one  whose  truth  is  universally  taken  for 
granted.  Nature  is  very  rarely  right  ;  to  such  an  extent, 
even,  that  it  might  almost  be  said  that  nature  is  usually 
wrong.  That  is  to  say,  the  condition  of  things  that  shall 
bring  about  the  perfection  of  harmony  worthy  a  picture  is 
rare,  and  not  common  at  all. 

' '  This  would  seem,  to  even  the  most  intelligent,  a  doctrine 
almost  blasphemous.  So  incorporated  with  our  education 
has  the  supposed  aphorism  become,  that  its  belief  is  held 
to  be  part  of  our  moral  being  ;  and  the  words  themselves 
have,  in  our  ear,  the  ring  of  religion.  Still,  seldom  does 
nature  succeed  in  producing  a  picture."  1 

One  should  never  confound  art  with  nature ;  they 
are  antithetical  terms.  There  is  no  art  in  nature  ; 
there  should  be  no  nature  in  art.  And  what  is  art 
is  not  nature,  and  what  is  nature  is  not  art. 

Nature  is  the  raw  material,  art  is  the  finished 
product ;  and  art  should  no  more  resemble  nature 


1  Gentle  Art,  p.  143. 
215 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


than  a  cave  resembles  a  house.  And  to  the  extent 
that  art  slavishly  imitates  nature  is  it  of  the  cave- 
dwelling  variety. 

There  is  no  color  that  is  not  found  in  nature. 
There  is  no  combination  of  colors  a  hint  of  which 
cannot  be  found  in  nature.  But  it  is  the  business 
of  art  to  take  the  colors,  accept  the  hints,  and  pro- 
duce combinations  and  effects  not  found  in  nature. 

It  is  not  the  business  of  the  artist  to  paint  any- 
thing as  it  is,  but  everything  as  he  sees  it. 

Yet  the  public  demand  that  a  tree  shall  be  repro- 
duced as  they  see  it, — that  the  picture  shall  be  a 
substitute  for  the  reality.  Why  not  go  to  the  win- 
dow and  look  at  the  tree  ?  For,  as  a  tree,  with  its 
quivering  leaves  and  the  infinite  play  of  light  and 
shadow,  it  is  more  beautiful  than  any  realistic  pho- 
tograph, drawing,  or  painting  possibly  could  be. 
But  to  see  the  reflection  of  the  tree  in  the  depths 
of  a  human  soul  one  must  turn  to  art,  to  poetry,  to 
music,  or  to  painting.  The  reflection  may  not  at  all 
resemble  the  reality  any  more  than  Keats' s  "  Ode 
to  a  Nightingale"  resembles  the  bird  or  the  song  of 
the  bird  ;  but  it  will  be  far  more  interesting  and  far 
more  beautiful  because  a  human  expression. 

The  child's  mud-house  and  the  boy's  snow-man 
are  of  greater  concern  to  humankind  than  all  the 
plains  and  mountains  of  the  earth. 


216 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


VIII 

The  Royal  Society  of  British  Artists — In  Paris 
once  more — At  Home  and  at  Work. 

* 

In  June,  1886,  Whistler  was  elected  president  of 
the  Royal  Society  of  British  Artists. 

Prior  to  that  time  he  had  exhibited  in  the  rooms 
of  the  society  in  Suffolk  Street,  and  he  was  no 
doubt  elected  to  give  life  to  a  moribund  association. 
He  succeeded  beyond  the  wildest  anticipations  of 
the  most  sanguine  members. 

He  rearranged  the  exhibitions  by  excluding  suffi- 
cient of  the  unworthy  to  leave  ample  space  on  the 
walls  for  the  proper  exhibition  of  such  pictures  as 
were  accepted. 

When  the  Prince  of  Wales,  now  King  Edward, 
visited  the  galleries  for  the  first  time,  Whistler,  as 
president,  received  him.  And  when  the  prince  said 
he  had  never  before  heard  of  the  society  and  asked 
its  history,  Whistler,  with  the  grace  of  a  courtier, 
replied  : 

"  It  has  none,  your  Highness.  Its  history  dates 
from  to-day." 

Two  years  of  so  revolutionary  a  president  were 
all  the  ancient  association  could  stand.  As  has  been 
well  said  : 1 


London  Times,  July  18,  1903. 
217 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


*'  That  Suffolk-Street  episode  was,  perhaps,  the  oddest  of 
an  odd  career.  The  most  mediocre  and  middle-class  of  all 
the  artistic  societies  of  London  was  in  low  water,  and  the 
thought  occurred  to  some  revolutionary  members  to  make 
Whistler  president.  It  was  like  electing  a  sparrow-hawk  to 
rule  a  community  of  bats.  Some  of  the  bats  moved  out, 
some  followers  of  the  sparrow-hawk  came  in  ;  but  the  interest- 
ing new  community  did  not  last  long.  The  suburban  ladies, 
who  had  been  the  support  of  the  Society  of  British  Artists, 
were  shocked  at  the  changes.  They  found  no  pleasure  in 
the  awning  stretched  across  the  middle  of  the  room,  the  bat- 
tened walls,  the  spaced-out  « impressionist'  pictures,  and  the 
total  absence  of  the  anecdotes  and  bright  colors  which  they 
loved.  A  few  hundred  visitors  of  another  sort  came,  and  were 
charmed,  but  the  commercial  test  of  success  was  not  satis- 
fied. Before  long  Whistler  ceased  to  be  president,  and  the 
society,  under  a  more  congruous  chief,  '  relapsed  to  its 
ancient  mood. '  ' ' 

When  he  failed  of  re-election  many  of  his  friends 
resigned. 

"  It  is  all  very  simple,"  he  said.  "The  'Royal 
Society  of  British  Artists'  has  disintegrated, — the 
'Artists'  have  come  out,  the  'British'  remain." 

When  interviewed  to  obtain  his  explanation  of 
the  "state  of  affairs  :" 

' '  The  state  of  affairs  ?' '  said  Mr.  Whistler,  in  his  light  and 
airy  way,  raising  his  eyebrows  and  twinkling  his  eyes,  as  if 
it  were  all  the  best  possible  fun  in  the  world  ;  "why,  my  dear 
sir,  there's  positively  no  state  of  affairs  at  all.  Contrary  to 
public  declaration,  there's  actually  nothing  chaotic  in  the 
whole  business.  On  the  contrary,  everything  is  in  order,  and 
just  as  it  should  be, — the  survival  of  the  fittest  as  regards 
the  presidency,  don't  you  see  ;  and,  well — Suffolk  Street  is 
itself  again  !    A  new  government  has  come  in  ;  and,  as  I 

218 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


told  the  members  the  other  night,  I  congratulate  the  society 
on  the  result  of  their  vote  :  for  no  longer  can  it  be  said  that 
the  right  man  is  in  the  wrong  place.  No  doubt  their  pristine 
sense  of  undisturbed  somnolence  will  again  settle  upon  them 
after  the  exasperated  mental  condition  arising  from  the  un- 
natural strain  recently  put  upon  the  old  ship.  Eh  ?  what  ? 
ha  !  ha  !" 

He  painted  a  signboard  for  the  entrance  to  the 
galleries, — a  lion  and  a  butterfly, — a  "  harmony  in 
gold  and  red,"  with  which,  he  says,  "I  took  as 
much  trouble  as  I  did  with  the  best  picture  I  ever 
painted." 

But  his  successor  in  office  clothed  the  golden  lion 
"  with  a  coat  of  dirty  black,"  and  effaced  the  butter- 
fly entirely ;  whereupon  he  called  the  society  to  task 
for  destroying  the  work  of  a  fellow-artist,  and  the 
entire  episode  appears  in  the  "  Gentle  Art"  as  only 
he  could  tell  it. 

In  1887  he  married  the  widow  of  E.  W.  Godwin, 
the  architect  of  the  "  White  House,"  and  not  long 
after  they  went  to  live  in  Paris,  at  1 10  Rue  du  Bac. 

The  narrow  passage-way  that  leads  from  the  street 
to  where  they  lived  is,  like  thousands  of  others  in 
Old  Paris,  just  an  archway  between  two  shops,  un- 
promising and  uninviting. 

Passing  through,  one  finds  a  small  paved  court 
immediately  in  the  rear,  and  on  three  sides  of  this 
court  the  entrances  and  windows  of  the  apartments 
and  houses  opening  therefrom. 

The  court  itself  is  not  without  interest.  On  one 
219 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


side  there  is  an  old  bronze  fountain,  long  since  dry  ; 
about  the  walls  a  sculptured  frieze,  much  the  worse 
for  wear ;  everything  of  by-gone  days, — the  very 
architecture,  in  all  its  details,  of  another  generation. 

Whistler's  entrance  was  on  the  ground  floor,  just 
across  the  little  court.  On  a  memorable  day  the 
bell  was  answered  by  a  solemn-faced  English  ser- 
vant,— possibly  more  than  ordinarily  solemn-faced, 
because  that  particular  morning  he  was  in  great  dis- 
favor, and  was  subsequently  discharged  for  a  cumu- 
lation of  shortcomings  which  would  have  exhausted 
the  patience  of  an  ordinary  man  thrice  over.  But 
Whistler — all  impressions  to  the  contrary,  notwith- 
standing— was  a  man  of  infinite  patience  with  sitter 
and  servant, — the  work  of  the  latter  being  consider- 
ably lighter  than  that  of  the  former.  Under  only 
the  greatest  provocation  would  he  discharge  either. 

Passing  through  the  door,  one  went  down  several 
steps  into  the  small  hall,  and  through  that  into  the 
reception-room. 

This  room  was  a  revelation  of  the  personality  of 
the  artist, — simple,  dignified,  harmonious  ;  it  was 
restful  and  charming  to  the  last  degree.  The  details 
were  so  unobtrusive  that  it  is  difficult  to  recall  par- 
ticular features.  The  floor  was  covered  with  a 
coarse,  dark-blue  matting  ;  the  panelled  walls  were 
in  pure  white  and  blue,  while  the  ceiling  was  in  a 
light  shade  of  blue.  The  room  stood  firmly  on  its 
feet,  unlike  so  many  in  even  the  best  of  houses, 
which  have  floors  so  light  and  walls  so  dark  that 
everything  is  topsy-turvy. 

220 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


Color  seeks  and  finds  its  level ;  light  floors,  with 
darker  walls  and  ceilings,  reverse  the  natural  order 
of  things,  and  compel  people  to  live  on  their  heads. 

The  few  pieces  of  furniture  were  of  an  old  pat- 
tern, graceful  almost  to  fragility,  and  covered  with 
some  light  stuff  which  harmonized  with  the  tone  of 
the  walls. 

There  were  but  two  pictures  in  the  room,  one  at 
each  end,  both  sketches  by  Whistler,  "  harmonies" 
or  "arrangements"  in  color  rather  than  composi- 
tions. The  "key"  being  blue,  the  pictures  blended 
with  the  walls,  as  all  pictures  should,  as  if  part  of  the 
original  scheme  of  decoration. 

When  a  visitor,  who  was  fascinated  by  the  color 
of  these  two  studies,  asked  the  painter  if  he  would 
part  with  them,  he  said  : 

"  God  bless  me,  no  !  I  am  going  to  do  some- 
thing big  some  day  from  those.     Pretty,  eh?" 

His  studio  was  filled  with  just  such  "  notes"  and 
"jottings"  of  schemes  in  color  and  composition, 
and  from  each  it  was  his  intention  to  work  out 
something  more  important  and  complete  ;  but  such 
was  the  fertility  of  his  imagination  that  no  man 
could  hope  to  carry  even  a  fraction  to  finished  con- 
clusions. 

Near  the  fireplace,  at  one  end  of  the  room,  was  a 
little  old-fashioned  table  covered  with  writing-ma- 
terials,— paper  of  the  smallest  size,  a  dainty  ink- 
stand, and  several  quill  pens.  This  was  the  table 
of  controversy,  the  battlefield  of  disputation,  the 
veritable  mount  of  irony,  while  the  ink-well  was 

221 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


the  fountain  of  exquisite  sarcasm,  and  the  quill 
pens  the  scalpels  which  laid  bare  the  vital  recesses 
of  unlucky  opponents. 

It  was  the  habit  of  the  painter,  in  his  idle  mo- 
ments, to  sit  at  this  little  table,  with  a  small  cup  of 
coffee  and  a  cigarette,  and  write  those  barbed  and 
pointed  notes  which,  like  so  many  banderillas,  irri- 
tated to  frenzy  the  bulls  they  were  aimed  at 

The  far  side  of  the  room  opened  into  one  of 
those  quaint  old  gardens  so  often  found  tucked  away 
in  the  midst  of  crumbling  buildings  on  the  ancient 
thoroughfares.  Its  narrow  confines  were  enlarged  to 
the  eye  by  winding,  gravelled  walks  and  vistas  of 
flowers  and  bushes  ;  the  rickety  seats,  half  hidden 
by  the  foliage,  invited  the  loiterer  to  repose,  and  the 
high  wall  beyond  suggested  the  gloomy  confines  of 
some  convent  or  deserted  monastery. 

"  A  picturesque  spot.  Once  at  dusk  there  came 
the  tinkle  of  a  far-off  bell,  as  if  for  vesper  prayers  ; 
the  years  rolled  back,  and  visions  of  other  days 
flitted  along  the  garden  paths  ;  stately  dames  in  rich 
brocades,  with  powder,  patch,  and  high  coiffure,  and 
gallant  courtiers  with  graved  and  jewelled  blades, 
whose  whispered  vows  were  no  more  stable  than  the 
sound  of  rustling  leaves." 

Here  of  a  Sunday  afternoon  Mrs.  Whistler  fre- 
quently served  tea,  and  in  this  garden  he  made  some 
of  his  best  lithographs. 

At  home  Whistler  was  the  most  delightful  of — 
guests.  The  cares  of  hospitality  sat  lightly  upon 
him. 

222 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


To  the  caller  who  had  come  at  the  appointed 
hour,  and  had  waited  for  thirty  or  forty  minutes, 
he  would  apologize  so  delightfully  for  the  "  unpar- 
donable delay,"  that  a  prince  could  take  no  offence, 
much  less  an  ordinary  visitor,  who  could  profitably 
spend  the  time  in  studying  the  harmonious  sur- 
roundings. 

It  is  difficult  to  describe  the  charm  of  his  man- 
ner, so  different  from  the  notion  of  it  that  prevails 
generally. 

He  was  far  more  easy  of  approach  than  most 
celebrities  ;  and  once  within  the  charmed  circle,  he 
was  the  most  agreeable  and  companionable  of 
living  men. 

He  would  make  the  diffident  feel  instantly  at 
ease,  and  he  would  exert  himself  to  interest  even 
the  stupid  visitor,  but  he  would  not  encourage  him 
to  come  again. 

His  own  talk  was  so  bright  that  it  was  unneces- 
sary for  any  guest  to  say  much, — a  capacity  for  lis- 
tening appreciatively  being  the  best  qualification. 
Still,  he  did  not  monopolize  the  conversation.  He 
himself  was  one  of  the  keenest  listeners  that  ever 
sat  at  a  dinner-table  ;  nothing  escaped  him.  And 
if  by  chance  some  one  said  a  good  thing,  he  was  the 
first  to  applaud  it. 

In  company  it  was  impossible  to  draw  him  into 
serious  discussion.  If  the  attempt  were  made,  it 
usually  led  to  a  monologue  on  his  part  on  some 
branch  of  the  topic  under  discussion, — a  monologue 
so  extravagant,  so  funny,  so  irresistible  in  its  humor 

223 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


and  denunciation  that  the  entire  company  would 
turn  and  listen  with  delight. 

No  one  who  has  ever  heard  his  comparison  of  the 
Englishman  who  carries  his  tub  and  sponge  on  the 
top  of  the  coach  to  parade  his  cleanliness  with  the 
French  who  had  vast  public  baths  before  England 
was  discovered  can  ever  forget  the  inimitable  wit 
and  humor  and — underlying  truth  of  it  all.  Again, 
his  description  of  the  Germans, — a  people  that  call 
a  glove  a  hand-shoe.  Well,  it  is  idle  to  even  call  to 
mind  these  things  ;  they  will  never  be  heard  again, 
and  no  report  could  do  them  justice. 

A  lady,  after  visiting  him,  said,  "  He  is  like  no 
other  human  being  ;  a  creature  of  moods  and  epi- 
grams, but  perfectly  delightful.  I  feel  as  if  I'd  been 
conversing  with  a  flash  of  lightning  in  a  brown 
velvet  coat." 

No  man  could  draw  him  out  of  malice  afore- 
thought.    It  was  fatal  to  say  : 

"Mr.  Whistler,  do  tell  that  story  of  the  " 

etc. 

Of  that  sort  he  was  no  story-teller  at  all,  and  if 
persistently  urged,  would  close  up  like  a  clam  ;  but, 
if  left  to  himself,  he  would  take  part  in  any  conversa- 
tion that  might  be  started,  and  would  soon  take  the 
lead,  not  obviously  or  offensively,  but  naturally,  and 
say  things  that  would  make  the  professed  wit  dumb 
with  envy.  He  would  say  things  he  had  said,  or 
even  printed,  before,  if  the  subject  warranted  it. 
He  might  even  go  a  bit  out  of  his  way  to  drag  in  a 
good  thing  which  he  thought  would  fit ;  but  for  the 

224 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


most  part  his  talk  was  the  spontaneous  utterance  of 
the  occasion. 

He  was  known  to  every  "chef"  and  "  maitre 
d' hotel"  in  London  and  Paris, — for,  while  he  ate  and 
drank  most  sparingly,  he  was  exceedingly  fastidious. 

He  did  not  care  greatly  for  the  large  caravansa- 
ries like  the  "  Ritz,"  where  people  go  to  perform  in 
public  astounding  gastronomic  feats  ;  but  he  knew 
every  place  in  Paris  where  a  really  good  dish  was  to 
be  had  at  a  moderate  price,  and  every  such  place 
gave  him  the  best  it  had. 

Nearly  every  sketch,  drawing,  or  portrait  of  Whist- 
ler gives  some  phase  of  his  many-sided  personality, 
but  not  one — not  even  those  by  himself — gives  any- 
thing like  an  adequate  conception. 

He  was  a  man  most  difficult  to  place  on  canvas. 
He  could  not  be  grasped  and  held  long  enough. 
He  himself  tried  it,  but  with  only  moderate  success. 
Others  have  tried  it  and  failed  completely, — that  is, 
failed  to  portray  him  at  his  best ;  for  that  matter, 
no  one  who  has  ever  drawn  or  painted  him  did  so 
when  he  was  at  his  best,  for  those  moments  came 
only  in  the  seclusion  of  his  own  studio,  when,  alone 
with  model  or  sitter,  he  worked  absolutely  oblivious 
to  everything  but  his  art.  No  man  is  at  his  best 
when  posing  for  photograph,  sketch,  or  portrait,  and 
Whistler  was  farther  from  being  an  exception  to 
this  rule  than  most  others.  He  knew  too  well  what 
a  portrait  should  be  to  feel  the  indifference  which  is 
essential  to  a  perfectly  natural  pose.  Consequently, 
15  225 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


while  few  men  were  better  known  by  sight  in  Paris 
and  London,  scarce  any  one  knew  him  as  he  was, — 
the  most  profoundly  serious,  conscientious,  and  con- 
sistent artist  of  his  day  and  generation. 

As  has  been  stated,  he  was  always  exceedingly 
particular  about  his  dress, — as  finicky  as  a  woman. 
In  his  early  London  days  he  carried  a  long,  slender 
wand,  like  a  mahl-stick,  for  a  cane,  and  was  conspic- 
uous wherever  he  went,  not  only  on  account  of  his 
diminutive  size,  but  also  by  his  stick  and  dress. 

An  attendant  at  an  exhibition  once  wished  to  re- 
lieve him  of  his  cane,  but  he  exclaimed  : 

"Oh,  no,  my  man  !  I  keep  this  for  the  critics." 

The  following,  by  a  London  correspondent,  is  a 
very  good  description,  though  of  late  years  he  had 
abandoned  the  cane  and  his  hair  was  somewhat 
grayer  : 

"They  say  Whistler  is  fifty-six.  But  years  have  nothing 
to  do  with  him.  He  is  as  young  in  spirit,  as  lithe  in  body, 
as  dapper  in  '  get-up*  as  he  was  twenty  years  ago. 

"Is  there  another  man  in  London  with  such  vitality  as 
Whistler  has, — I  care  not  what  his  age, — another  so  dainty, 
another  so  sprightly  in  wit  ?  Do  you  see  that  dapper  gentle- 
man coming  along  Cheyne  Walk,  silk  hat  with  very  tall  crown 
and  very  straight  brim  ;  habit  apparently  broadcloth  (frock 
coat),  fitting  to  perfection  a  supple  figure  ;  feet  small  as  a 
girl' s, — an  American  girl' s ;  hands  delicately  gloved  in  yellow; 
in  the  right  hand  a  lithe,  slim  wand,  twice  as  long  as  a  walk- 
ing stick ;  glass  in  eye ;  black  moustache  and  slight  •  imperial ;' 
black  hair  with  wavy  threads  of  gray  here  and  there  ?  The 
dainty  gentleman  lifts  his  hat,  and  you  see  above  his  fore- 
head the  slender,  white  lock — the  white  plume  as  famous  as 

226 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


that  of  Navarre.  This  is  our  friend  Whistler,  the  inimitable, 
truly  called  '  the  master. '  You  may  meet  him  in  the  early 
morning,  or  at  a  private  view  in  the  afternoon,  at  an  evening 
party,  two  hours  before  midnight  or  two  hours  after  it  ;  and 
you  will  find  him  as  fresh  in  spirit,  as  dainty,  as  lively,  as 
witty  at  one  time  as  at  another." 

Some  one  once  gave  him  an  American  umbrella, — 
one  of  those  that  when  rolled  tightly  are  as  small  as 
walking-sticks.  He  was  delighted  with  it,  and  used 
it  as  a  cane.  One  day,  coming  out  of  the  studio 
with  a  friend,  and  while  hurrying  to  the  cab-stand  a 
few  blocks  away,  it  began  to  drizzle,  and  his  friend, 
who  had  no  umbrella,  said  : 

"  Hurry  and  put  up  your  umbrella  or  we'll  get 
our  hats  wet." 

He  fumbled  a  second  at  the  umbrella,  then  hur- 
ried on. 

"But  I  would  get  my  umbrella  wet." 

It  was  commonly  said  Whistler  was  unapproach- 
able. In  his  studio,  when  at  work,  yes  ;  in  his 
home,  no. 

A  note  of  introduction  from  any  approved  corre- 
spondent would  almost  invariably  bring  a  favorable 
response.  But  not  every  correspondent  was  ap- 
proved ;  or  if  so  at  one  time,  did  not  necessarily 
remain  so  indefinitely,  and  a  note  from  the  wrong — 
perhaps  wronged — source  was  no  commendation  at 
all.  On  the  whole,  a  frank  application  from  a  stranger 
for  permission  to  call  was  quite  as  likely  as  not  to 
prove  successful,  such  a  note  in  itself  being  a  tribute. 

227 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


But  at  the  studio  it  was  very  different.  He  had 
no  reception-days  or  hours,  as  many  painters  have. 
He  had  no  use  for  the  social  rabble  in  his  work- 
shop. 

One  warm  afternoon,  when  hard  at  work,  the  bell 
rang.  Brush  in  hand,  he  went  to  the  outer  door  at 
the  head  of  the  six  flights  of  steep,  slippery  oak  stairs, 

and  found  there  Mr.  C  ,  whom  he  knew, — a  man 

who  had  little  to  do  but  bother  others, — and  Lady 

D  ,  a  distinguished  and  clever  woman,  both  out 

of  breath  from  their  long  climb. 

"Ah!  my  dear  Mr.  Whistler,"  drawled  C  , 

"I  have  taken  the  liberty  of  bringing  Lady  D  

to  see  you.    I  knew  you  would  be  delighted." 

"Delighted!  I'm  sure;  quite  beyond  expression; 
but," — mysteriously,  and  holding  the  door  so  as  to 

bar  their  entrance, — "  my  dear  Lady  D  ,  I  would 

never  forgive  our  friend  for  bringing  you  up  six 
flights  of  stairs  on  so  hot  a  day  to  visit  a  studio  at 
one  of  those — eh — pagan  moments  when" — and  he 
glanced  furtively  behind  him  and  still  further  closed 
the  door — "  it  is  absolutely  impossible  for  a  lady  to 
be  received.  Upon  my  soul,  I  should  never  forgive 
him." 

And  the  lady  looked  daggers  at  her  confused  cav- 
alier, as  Whistler  bowed  them  down  the  six  flights 
of  oaken  stairs  and  returned  to  resume  work  on  the 
portrait  of  a  very  sedate  old  gentleman,  who  had 
taken  advantage  of  the  interruption  to  break  for  a 
moment  the  rigor  of  his  pose. 

In  those  days  and  for  many  years  the  Paris  studio 
228 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


was  at  No.  86  Notre  Dame  des  Champs.  Whistler 
said  one  day,  "  Only  the  French  have  any  taste  in 
the  naming  of  streets." 

The  six  steep  flights  of  polished  oak  stairs  no 
doubt  shortened  his  life  by  many  years.  As  long 
ago  as  1894  he  was  accustomed  to  take  a  long  rest 
on  a  settee  at  the  head  of  the  third  flight,  and  again 
on  reaching  the  top.  Later  he  would  have  his 
luncheon  served  in  the  studio  to  avoid  the  fatigue 
of  going  down  and  coming  back.  He  was  by  no 
means  an  old  man,  and  looked  the  picture  of  health, 
cheeks  ruddy,  eye  bright ;  but  he  would  get  out  of 
breath,  and  his  heart  gave  him  trouble, — startled  him 
at  times  with  its  eccentricities  and  warnings. 

A  blunt  friend,  frightened  at  seeing  him  one  day 
almost  collapse  on  reaching  the  studio,  said  : 

"  I  tell  you,  Whistler,  those  stairs  will  be  the 
death  of  you  ;  and  I'll  be  hanged  if  I  am  coming 
here  any  more  with  you,  for  you'll  die  on  my  hands, 
and  that  would  get  me  into  a  nice  mess.  Why 
don't  you  have  a  studio  on  the  ground  floor?" 

"  When  I  die — I  will." 

But  while  casual  callers  met  with  scant  courtesy 
at  the  studio,  he  was,  as  has  already  been  noted, 
exceptionally  cordial  to  all  who  were  sincerely  in- 
terested in  his  work,  and  would  spend  hours  and 
hours  of  days  that  were  precious  in  showing  pictures 
to  people  who  really  could  not  understand  them, — 
for  that  matter,  who  did  understand  them? — but 
who  were  honest  in  their  expressions  of  approval, 

229 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


and  this,  too,  with  no  thought  of  selling  anything  he 
had  ;  in  fact,  nothing  chilled  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
moment  so  much  as  the  suggestion  of  a  purchase  ; 
he  became  immediately  a  different  being,  and  one  by 
one  his  treasures  would  be  turned  to  the  wall. 

The  studio  was  a  large  barn-like  room  at  the  very 
top  of  the  high  building.  There  was  a  small  entry- 
way,  which  had  a  glass  door  opening  out  upon  a 
balcony,  high  up  over  the  street,  and  another  door 
which  opened  into  the  studio  proper. 

A  huge  skylight  lighted  this  great  attic,  but  only 
in  part,  for  the  room  was  too  big  to  be  well  lighted 
from  any  one  opening. 

The  old  oak  floor  was  quite  dark,  and  in  places 
where  he  worked  it  was  polished  by  use,  for  when 
entirely  absorbed  he  had  the  habit  of  moving  back 
and  forth  so  quickly  as  to  slide  a  pace  or  two. 

The  tone  of  the  studio  was  brown,  not  a  deep  or 
muddy  brown,  but  a  brown  that  seemed  tinged  with 
gray. 

The  base-board  that  stretched  a  narrow  line  about 
the  big  room  was  a  deeper  shade  than  the  wall,  and 
so  nice  were  the  gradations  of  tone,  that  floor,  base- 
board, wall,  and  raftered  ceiling  blended  together  as 
one  harmonious  whole,  all  of  which  was  the  work 
of  Whistler. 

The  furniture  amounted  to  nothing  :  a  table  near 
the  far  side,  where  he  lunched,  an  old  sofa  against 
the  wall  under  the  skylight,  two  or  three  old  French 
chairs,  his  easel  and  palette.    There  was  a  high 

230 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


stove  near  the  door, — one  of  those  French  complica- 
tions intended  for  the  generation  of  a  maximum  of 
heat  with  a  minimum  consumption  of  precious  coal. 
Like  most  labor-saving  devices,  it  required  some 
skill  for  its  management,  and  Whistler  was  not  a 
mechanic. 

One  cold  day  it  was  only  too  apparent  the  stove 
needed  encouragement,  and  the  sitter  suggested 
that  the  damper  be  opened, — in  fact,  started  to 
open  it  himself,  when  Whistler,  greatly  alarmed, 
exclaimed  : 

"  God  bless  me !  but  you  must  not  touch  that ;  the 
last  time  I  meddled  with  it,  the  fire  went  out.  There 
is  only  one  man  in  Paris  who  understands  that  stove." 

"Well,  where  is  he?" 

"  Dear  me,  I  discharged  him  to-day.  How  un- 
lucky." 

"Then,  we  must  seize  the  stove  by  the  horns  and 
take  our  chances  on  the  consequences."  And  throw- 
ing the  damper  wide  open,  there  was  soon  a  blazing 
fire. 

For  work  outside,  Whistler  used  a  very  small 
palette  of  the  usual  form  ;  in  his  studio  he  carried 
no  palette  whatsoever,  but  used  in  lieu  thereof  a 
rectangular  table  that  resembled  a  writing-desk. 
The  top  sloped  slightly ;  at  the  left  were  tubes  of 
colors,  at  the  right  one  or  two  bowls  containing  oil 
and  turpentine,  with  which  the  colors  when  mixed 
were  reduced  so  thin  that  they  would  run  on  the 
sloping  top  of  the  table. 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


He  relied  upon  innumerable  coats  of  thin  color 
to  secure  the  desired  effect  rather  than  upon  one  or 
two  coats  of  greater  consistency.  This  made  the 
work  long  and  tedious  as  compared  with  the  modern 
mode  of  taking  the  pigments  as  they  squirm  from 
the  tubes  and  pasting  them  while  yet  alive  on  the 
canvas  ;  but  it  has  undoubtedly  given  his  pictures  a 
permanency  and  durability  far  beyond  that  of  others. 

He  seldom  began  to  arrange  his  palette  until  the 
model  or  sitter  was  in  pose  ;  and  ten  or  fifteen  min- 
utes were  not  infrequently  spent  in  getting  palette 
and  brushes  to  suit  him.  To  a  model  paid  by  the 
hour  this  delay  was  of  no  concern,  but  to  the  un- 
practised sitter,  whose  limit  of  endurance  and  pa- 
tience did  not  exceed  an  hour,  the  time  spent  in 
setting  the  palette  seemed  unduly  long  and  alto- 
gether wasted.  But  all  that  was  a  part  of  the  re- 
finement of  Whistler's  art. 

So  susceptible  was  his  color-sense  that  he  could 
not  mix  colors  to  suit  him  unless  canvas  and  sitter 
were  before  him  precisely  as  they  would  be  when  he 
began  to  paint.  The  arrangement  of  the  colors  on 
the  palette  was  but  preliminary  to  placing  those 
same  colors  on  the  canvas,  therefore  the  sitter  was 
as  essential  to  the  one  process  as  the  other. 

Once  inside  his  studio,  Whistler  seemed  to  lose 
all  the  eccentricities  of  manner  by  which  he  was 
known  to  the  world.  He  doffed  his  coat,  substi- 
tuted for  his  monocle  a  pair  of  servicable  spectacles, 
and  was  ready  for  work. 

232 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


If  it  were  a  full-length  portrait,  he  placed  the  can- 
vas near  his  palette  and  his  sitter  in  pose  about 
four  feet  to  the  other  side  of  the  easel.  For  obser- 
vation he  stood  about  twelve  feet  back  towards 
the  doorway, — very  close,  in  fact,  to  the  refractory 
stove.  The  light  fell  slanting  on  the  right  of  the 
portrait  and  sitter,  over  the  painter's  left  shoulder, 
and  this  light  he  would  modify  each  day  accord- 
ing to  the  amount  of  sunshine  and  the  effect  he 
desired. 

He  then  selected  two  or  three  small  brushes  with 
handles  about  three  feet  in  length,  stood  back  about 
twelve  feet,  took  a  good  look  at  both  sitter  and 
canvas,  then  stepping  quickly  forward,  and,  standing 
as  far  from  the  canvas  as  the  long  handles  and  his 
arms  permitted,  he  began  to  rapidly  sketch  in  the 
figure  with  long,  firm  strokes  of  the  brush.  The 
advantage  of  long  handles  was  obvious, — they  en- 
abled him  to  stand  back  quite  a  distance  and  sketch 
directly  from  his  sitter.  Except  for  this  first  sketch, 
he  used  ordinary  brushes  with  ordinary  handles. 

There  was  nothing  eccentric  or  unusual  in  his 
methods  or  in  what  he  worked  with.  Probably  no 
painter  in  all  Paris  used  simpler  means  to  arrive  at 
great  results.  It  is  quite  likely  that  no  other  painter 
of  to-day — judging  entirely  from  appearances  of 
modern  canvases — could  achieve  any  satisfactory 
results  with  materials  so  elemental. 

To  make  the  sketch  required  possibly  thirty  min- 
utes. To  the  casual  observer  there  was  often  more 
of  a  likeness  in  the  first  sketch  than  at  any  time 

233 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


after, — which  simply  goes  to  show  the  power  of  line 
devoid  of  color  and  also  the  easy  task  of  the 
caricaturist. 

The  sketch  finished,  the  long-handled  brushes 
were  discarded  and  work  began  in  earnest.  With 
one  or  more,  sometimes  a  handful  of  brushes, — for 
they  would  accumulate  without  his  realizing  it, — he 
would  again  stand  back  and  carefully  scrutinize  sitter 
and  canvas  until  it  seemed  as  if — and  no  doubt  it 
was  so — he  transferred  a  visual  impression  of  the 
subject  to  the  canvas  and  fixed  it  there  ready  to  be 
made  permanent  with  line  and  color  ;  then  quickly, 
often  with  a  run  and  a  slide,  he  rushed  up  to  the 
canvas  and,  without  glancing  at  his  sitter,  vigorously 
painted  so  long  as  his  visual  image  lasted,  then  going 
back  the  full  distance  he  took  another  look,  and  so 
on  day  after  day  to  the  end. 

In  life-size  work  he  seldom  stood  close  to  the 
canvas  and  painted  direct  from  his  sitter. 

He  has  laid  down  the  proposition  : 

"  The  one  aim  of  the  unsuspecting  painter  is  to  make  his 
man  '  stand  out'  from  the  frame,  never  doubting  that,  on  the 
contrary,  he  should  really,  and  in  truth  absolutely  does, 
stand  within  the  frame,  and  at  a  depth  behind  it  equal  to  the 
distance  at  which  the  painter  sees  his  model.  The  frame  is, 
indeed,  the  window  through  which  the  painter  looks  at  his 
model,  and  nothing  could  be  more  offensively  inartistic  than 
this  brutal  attempt  to  thrust  the  model  on  the  hitherside  of 
this  window. ' '  1 


1  Gentle  Art,  pp.  177,  178. 

234 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 

The  number  of  sittings  required  varied  greatly, 
and  did  not  depend  in  any  degree  upon  the  size  of 
the  canvas.  Sometimes  he  would  paint  a  life-size 
figure  with  great  rapidity  ;  again  he  would  spend 
weeks  and  months  on  a  very  small  picture.  All  de- 
pending upon  conditions  over  which  he  had  no 
control. 

He  has  devoted  as  many  as  ninety  sittings  to  a 
portrait,  only  to  pronounce  it  unfinished  and  unsatis- 
factory. 

No  work  counted  or  was  permitted  to  remain  save 
that  painted  in  what  he  called  his  "  grand  manner," 
which  meant  the  work  of  those  days  and  hours  when 
everything — sitter,  light,  weather,  spirits,  mood,  en- 
thusiasm— was  just  right, — a  combination  that  might 
come  several  days  in  succession  or  but  once  in  a 
fortnight. 

He  once  said,  "The  portrait  of  my  mother  was 
painted  in  a  few  hours,"  meaning  that  the  work  of 
the  last  few  hours  was  the  work  that  really  counted. 

It  was  interesting  to  watch  a  picture  grow  under 
the  hands  of  Whistler.  With  most  painters  some- 
thing is  finished  from  day  to  day,  and  in  the  course 
of  ten  or  twelve  sittings  the  portrait  is  complete. 
Not  so  with  him.  Nothing,  not  a  detail,  not  even  an 
infinitesimal  section  of  the  background  was  finished 
until  the  last. 

He  worked  with  great  rapidity  and  long  hours, 
but  he  used  his  colors  thin  and  covered  the  canvas 
with  innumerable  coats  of  paint.  The  colors  in- 
creased in  depth  and  intensity  as  the  work  pro- 

235 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 

gressed.  At  first  the  entire  figure  was  painted  in 
grayish-brown  tones,  with  very  little  of  flesh  color, 
the  whole  blending  perfectly  with  the  grayish-brown 
of  the  prepared  canvas  ;  then  the  entire  background 
would  be  intensified  a  little  ;  then  the  figure  made 
a  little  stronger  ;  then  the  background,  and  so  on 
from  day  to  day  and  week  to  week,  and  often  from 
month  to  month,  to  the  exhaustion  of  the  sitter,  but 
the  perfection  of  the  work,  if  the  sitter  remained 
patient  and  continued  in  favor. 

At  no  time  did  he  permit  the  figure  to  get  away 
from  or  out  of  the  background  ;  at  no  time  did  he 
permit  the  background  to  oppress  the  figure,  but 
the  development  of  both  was  even  and  harmonious, 
with  neither  discord  nor  undue  contrast. 

And  so  the  portrait  would  really  grow,  really 
develop  as  an  entirety,  very  much  as  a  negative 
under  the  action  of  the  chemicals  comes  out  gradu- 
ally— lights,  shadows,  and  all  from  the  first  faint 
indications  to  their  full  values. 

It  was  as  if  the  portrait  were  hidden  within  the 
canvas  and  the  master  by  passing  his  wands  day 
after  day  over  the  surface  evoked  the  image. 

Most  painters  can  take  a  canvas  and  begin  at 
once  with  the  colors  of  the  finished  picture,  making 
each  stroke  count  from  the  very  first,  often,  if  the 
canvas  has  been  prepared,  doing  little  or  nothing  to 
the  background.  Whistler  himself  would  some- 
times let  the  prepared  canvas  show,  all  the  resources 
of  his  art  he  understood,  but  if  he  did,  the  picture 
was  simply  a  sketch. 

236 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


In  a  very  profound  sense  Whistler's  work  from 
the  very  beginning  was  always  finished, — finished 
in  the  sense  that  any  growing  thing  is  perfect  from 
day  to  day.  The  plant  may  be  but  a  tender  shoot 
just  appearing  above  the  ground,  or  it  may  be  in 
full  leaf,  or  in  gorgeous  blossom,  but  it  is  finished, 
it  is  perfect  by  day  and  night  In  that  sense  were 
Whistler's  paintings  finished.  If  they  were  sketches, 
then  the  slight  amount  of  color  used  was  precisely 
the  amount  the  sketch  required.  At  no  time  was 
the  sense  of  proportion  outraged  by  carrying  line 
or  color  or  likeness  beyond  the  symmetrical  develop- 
ment of  the  three. 

One  must  not  be  understood  as  saying  that  all 
his  pictures  are  of  equal  merit, — perfection  does  not 
necessarily  mean  that ;  nor  that  he  did  not  do  many 
things  he  considered  failures. 

Few  painters  ever  destroyed  more  work,  no 
painter  was  ever  more  critical  of  his  own  work. 
But,  in  spite  of  all  he  could  do,  things  would  get  out 
into  the  world  that  he  wished  destroyed.  This  was 
due  in  part  to  the  facility  with  which  he  made 
sketches  and  the  enthusiasm  with  which  he  would 
begin  new  things,  many  of  which  never  got  on. 
Now  and  then  some  of  these  unfinished  things — 
unfinished  from  the  first  stroke,  because  never  quite 
satisfactory  to  him — would  escape  his  studio. 

Artists  express  very  positive  opinions  regarding 
the  merits  of  his  pictures,  placing  some  with  the 
best  the  world  has  done,  others  as  quite  unworthy 

237 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


the  master.  As  no  two  painters  agree  which  are 
the  best  and  which  are  the  least  worthy,  the  layman 
is  helpless.  In  truth,  only  Whistler  himself  could 
have  pointed  out  all  the  qualities  and  defects,  and 
this  he  never  did.  If  pressed  for  an  opinion  or  a 
preference,  he  would  evade  the  question,  or  by  deftly 
speaking  of  this  or  that  quality  of  the  works  under 
discussion  would  leave  his  hearers  with  the  im- 
pression they  knew  all  about  the  matter,  when  in 
reality  they  were  no  wiser  than  before.  He  simply 
did  not  care  to  discuss  his  work  intimately  with 
the  lay  or  the  professional  mind.  What  he  saw 
was  beyond  their  comprehension,  or  if  not  beyond 
their  comprehension,  then  they  saw  it  without  fur- 
ther words  from  him,  for  did  not  the  picture  speak 
plainly  for  itself? 

Contrary  to  general  impression,  he  was  patience 
itself  in  his  studio.  A  sitter  who  was  with  him 
every  day  for  nearly  six  weeks  never  heard  him 
utter  an  impatient  word  ;  on  the  contrary,  he  was 
all  kindness.  He  would  permit  his  sitter  to  bring 
friends  to  the  studio,  and  he  would  listen  to  all  the 
foolish  suggestions  that  could  occur  to  a  tired  and 
impatient  man. 

Sometimes  he  would  rebuke  a  too-insistent  sitter, 
as  the  following  anecdotes  show,  if  true  : 

It  is  said  that  one  man  annoyed  him  by  saying  at 
the  end  of  each  sitting  : 

"How  about  that  ear,  Mr.  Whistler?  Don't 
forget  to  finish  that !" 

238 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


At  the  last  sitting,  everything  being  done  except 
this  ear,  Whistler  said  : 

"Well,  I  think  I  am  through.  Now  I'll  sign  it." 
Which  he  did  in  a  very  solemn,  important  manner, 
as  was  his  way. 

"But  my  ear,  Mr.  Whistler!  You  aren't  going 
to  leave  it  that  way?" 

"Oh,  you  can  put  it  in  after  you  get  home." 

He  was  once  painting  the  portrait  of  a  distin- 
guished novelist,  who,  though  extremely  clever,  was 
not  blessed  with  the  fatal  gift  of  beauty.  When 
the  portrait  was  finished,  the  sitter  did  not  seem 
satisfied  with  it. 

"Don't  you  like  it?"  inquired  Whistler. 

"No  ;  can't  say  I  do.  But,"  in  self  justification, 
"you  must  admit  that  it  is  a  bad  work  of  art." 

"Yes,"  Whistler  replied  ;  "but  I  think  you  must 
admit  that  you  are  a  bad  work  of  nature." 

The  truth  is,  he  would  listen  to  every  suggestion 
made  by  the  sitter,  model,  or  even  casual  visitor,  if 
one  were  admitted. 

A  sitter  once  said  to  him  : 

"  Mr.  Whistler,  isn't  there  something  wrong  about 
the  right  eye?" 

Instantly  alert,  he  said  : 

"What's  that  you  say?  Um — um — right  eye  " 

And  he  carefully  examined  the  canvas.  "  We'll  have 
a  look  at  that.  Suppose  you  stand  for  just  a  moment 
— just  a  moment."  And  he  paid  as  much  heed  as 
if  the  criticism  had  come  from  competent  sources. 

Mrs.  Whistler  would  now  and  then  come  to  the 
239 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


studio,  and  he  would  eagerly  ask  her  opinion  of  the 
progress  made  ;  and  her  suggestions  were  always 
followed.  For  her  ability  as  an  artist — for  her  own 
pleasure,  rather  than  for  profit — and  as  a  critic  of 
his  work  he  had  the  highest  opinion.  Her  sug- 
gestions were  ever  to  the  point,  and  under  her  in- 
fluence a  work  always  made  rapid  headway.  It  was 
an  irreparable  loss  when  she  died  in  1897,  and  he 
was  never  again  quite  so  light-hearted.  For  a  long 
time  he  kept  the  apartments  at  1 10  Rue  du  Bac,  but 
did  not  live  there. 

His  will  expressed  his  devotion  to  her  memory 
and  belief  in  her  art, — 

"I  bequeath  my  wife's  entire  collection  of  garnets  rare 
and  beautiful,  together  with  sprays,  pendants,  etc.,  of  the 
same  style  of  work  or  setting  in  white  stones,  brilliants,  or 
old  paste,  our  entire  collection  of  beautiful  old  silver  and 
plate,  and  the  complete  collection  of  old  china,  to  the  Louvre. 
This  bequest  is  on  condition  that  the  three  collections  be 
gathered  together  in  one  and  displayed  as  the  '  Beatrix 
Whistler  Collection.'  Also  that  in  it  or  appropriately  in  the 
same  room  shall  be  hung  proofs  of  my  wife's  exquisite  etch- 
ings, of  which  I  leave  a  list  attached  to  my  will  signed 
by  me." 

By  a  codicil  dated  May  7,  1903,  he  revoked  the 
bequest  to  the  Louvre,  but  he  expressed  a  desire 
that,  in  the  event  of  his  residuary  legatee  retain- 
ing the  collection  of  garnets  during  her  life,  she 
would  bequeath  them  to  the  Louvre  upon  her  death. 

240 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


He  was  unsparing  of  his  sitters  only  in  this  one 
respect, — he  would  become  so  absorbed  in  his  work 
as  to  completely  forget  them,  and  they  would  col- 
lapse with  fatigue.  Sometimes  he  would  notice  by 
their  pallor  the  faintness  which  was  overcoming 
them,  and  instantly,  all  solicitude,  he  would  have 
them  rest,  or  go  out  on  the  balcony  for  fresh  air ; 
but  he  himself  never  sat  down.  While  they  were 
resting  he  would  walk  back  and  forth,  looking  at  the 
canvas,  but  rarely  touching  it,  and  talking  to  him- 
self,— now  and  then,  but  not  often,  taking  the  sitter 
into  his  confidence.  The  moment  the  sitter  was 
rested  he  would  begin  working  again  like  one  pos- 
sessed. 

By  close  observation  it  could  be  seen  that  the 
best  work  was  usually  done  during  the  first  long 
pose,  or  in  the  last  hour  of  the  afternoon,  when  the 
shadows  were  deepening  ;  and  the  wise  sitter  would 
humor  this  trait  and  pose  his  longest  and  best  in 
those  two  hours. 

To  the  unaccustomed  a  half-hour  standing — with- 
out moving  so  much  as  to  disturb  a  line  of  the  gar- 
ments— is  a  long  pose.  But  with  practice — and  with 
Whistler  one  had  practice — an  hour  and  a  half  with- 
out moving  a  muscle  is  not  impossible. 

Every  portrait  Whistler  ever  began  he  expected 
to  make  his  masterpiece.  That  is  the  way  he  started 
in  with  any  work.  It  was  to  be  the  best  thing  he 
ever  did  ;  and  so  long  as  the  enthusiasm  lasted  he 
would  walk  up  and  down  the  studio  talking  half  to 
himself  half  to  his  sitter  : 
16  241 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


"  We  will  just  go  right  on  as  we  have  begun,  and 
it  will  be  fine, — perhaps  the  finest  thing  I  have  ever 
done." 

"Not  as  good  as  the  portrait  of  your  mother?" 
— the  inevitable  question. 

"  Perhaps  ;  who  knows  ?  Possibly  finer  in  a  way  ; 
for  this,  you  know,  is  different.  We'll  make  a  big 
thing  of  it."  And  so  on  for  days  and  weeks,  until 
something  would  occur, — possibly  weariness  on  the 
part  of  the  sitter ;  possibly  failure  to  keep  appoint- 
ments on  days  when  the  painter  felt  like  doing  his 
best ;  possibly  too  great  anxiety  to  see  the  picture 
finished, — and  the  painter's  enthusiasm  would  sub- 
side, and  the  portrait  would  turn  out  not  so  great 
after  all. 

After  the  first  few  days  he  would  place  the  canvas 
in  its  frame,  and  thereafter  paint  with  it  so.  And 
his  frames  were  designed  by  himself.  All  who  have 
seen  his  pictures  know  them, — just  simple,  dignified 
lines,  with  no  contortions  of  wood  and  gilt. 

When  a  sitter  was  of  congenial  spirit  and  com- 
placent mood  they  would  lunch  in  the  studio,  and 
he  would  paint  all  day,  from  eleven  in  the  morning 
until — well,  until  it  was  so  dark  that  all  was  dim 
and  shadowy  and  ghostly  ;  and  then  together  both 
would  take  their  leave,  always  turning  at  the  door 
for  a  last  look  at  the  canvas  looming  mysterious  in 
the  darkness  ;  then  grope  their  way  down  the  wind- 
ing oaken  stairs,  later  to  dine  together  at  some  un- 
frequented place  where  the  proprietor  watched  the 

242 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


fire  himself  and  had  stored  away  in  musty  depths  a 
few — just  a  few — relics  of  memorable  vintages. 

"  O  my  friends,  when  I  am  sped,  appoint  a  meeting  ;  and 
when  ye  have  met  together,  be  ye  glad  thereof ;  and  when 
the  cup-bearer  holds  in  her  hand  a  flagon  of  old  wine,  then 
think  of  old  Khayyam  and  drink  to  his  memory." 

In  a  glass  of  ruby  Margaux  of  the  vintage  of 
'58,  the  last  of  its  dusty  bin,  I  drink  to  the  memory 
of  those  glorious  days  when  the  vacant  canvas  as- 
sumed the  hues  of  life  and  grew  beneath  the  touch  ; 
and  those  fragrant  nights  when,  with  stately  cere- 
mony, the  cob-webbed  bottle  came  forth  from  its 
bed  of  long  repose  to  subdue  fatigue,  banish  all 
care,  and  leave  but  the  thought  of  the  beautiful. — 
Behold,  far  soul,  the  empty  glass ! 


243 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


IX 

Portrait -Painting  —  How  he  Differed  from  his 
Great  Predecessors — The  "Likeness" — Compo- 
sition of  Color — No  Commercial  Side — Baronet 
vs.  Butterfly. 

Whistler  was  not  a  "portrait-painter,"  as  the 
phrase  goes  nowadays  ;  but  he  was,  in  certain  re- 
spects, the  greatest  painter  of  portraits  the  world 
has  known. 

As  a  "portrait-painter"  he  fell  far  short  of  Rem- 
brandt, Velasquez,  and  a  host  of  lesser  men  ;  but 
as  a  painter  of  portraits  he  rose  superior  to  them 
all  in  certain  refinements  of  the  art. 

There  is  a  vast  difference  between  the  "  portrait- 
painter"  to  whom  the  sitter  is  of  first  importance 
and  the  painter  to  whom  his  art  is  of  first  impor- 
tance. The  difference  lies  in  the  attitude  of  the 
artist  towards  his  canvas,  towards  the  work  he  is 
about  to  undertake.  Is  the  inspiration  wholly  his 
own,  or  is  he  influenced  by  considerations  quite 
foreign  to  the  production  of  a  pure  work  of  art? 

The  attitude  of  the  "portrait-painter"  may  be 
likened  unto  that  of  the  "poet  laureate,"  whose 
verse  is  at  the  command  of  conditions  he  does  not 

244 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


control  ;  who  may,  by  accident,  write  a  good  thing, — ■ 
but  the  rule  is  otherwise,  with  even  the  best. 

To  rightly  place  a  human  being  on  canvas,  or  in 
stone,  or  in  marble,  or  in  poetry,  is  the  noblest 
achievement  of  art.  On  the  technical  side  it  ex- 
hausts the  resources  of  the  art ;  on  the  spiritual  side 
it  exhausts  the  genius  of  the  artist.  But  "  portrait- 
painting"  as  a  profession,  as  an  industrial  and  a 
commercial  proposition,  is  a  degradation  of  art.  It 
is  in  strict  accord  with  the  spirit  of  the  age  ;  it  is  a 
natural  and  an  inevitable  evolution.  But  it  is,  never- 
theless, a  degradation, — for  wherein  does  the  shop- 
like atelier  of  the  professional  "portrait-painter" 
differ  from  the  emporium  and  the  bazaar  of  com- 
merce ?  And  wherein  do  the  methods  of  the  shrewd 
and  successful  painter  differ  from  those  of  the  suc- 
cessful merchant  ?  Are  not  the  doors  of  the  studio 
open  to  every  comer  with  a  purse?  Are  not  the 
prices  fixed  at  so  much  per  square  yard  of  canvas  ? 
Is  not  the  patronage  of  celebrities  sought,  regardless 
of  artistic  possibilities,  for  the  prestige  it  gives? 
Are  not  the  A.  R.  A.  and  the  R.  A.,  and  all  the 
degrees  and  decorations,  sought,  like  the  "  By  spe- 
cial appointment  to  H.  M.  — "  of  the  tradesman,  for 
the  money  there  is  in  them  ? 

But  what  need  to  enumerate  the  motives  that 
move  the  professional  "  portrait-painter," — they  are 
written  on  his  every  canvas. 

Sculpture  still  clings  to  its  ideals,  and  the  "bust- 
maker"  is  a  term  of  reproach.     No  sculptor  with 

245 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


any  ambition  whatsoever,  with  any  love  for  his  art, 
would  willingly  look  forward  to  a  career  of  portrait 
bust-making.  Dire  necessity  may  compel  him,  and 
year  after  year  he  may  make  the  marble  and  bronze 
effigies  of  local  celebrities  ;  but  the  yoke  galls,  the 
task  wearies,  and  he  looks  forward  to  the  time  when, 
emancipated  from  his  thraldom,  he  may  do  some- 
thing of  his  own. 

Not  so  the  "  portrait-painter."  He  glories  in  his 
degradation  ;  paints  a  score  of  huge,  staring  can- 
vases, blatant  likenesses  of  blatant  people,  and,  be- 
fore the  paint  is  dry,  parades  them  in  exhibition  as  his 
latest  galaxy  of  masterpieces, — not  that  his  art  may 
be  magnified,  but  that  his  trade  may  be  advertised. 

The  sculptor  is  only  too  glad  if  his  bronze  effi- 
gies are  hidden  in  leafy  thickets,  in  parks,  and 
out-of-the-way  places.  He  has  not  learned  the  com- 
mercial value  of  exhibitions.  He  does  not  every 
few  months  place  on  view  a  lot  of  marbles  and 
bronzes,  the  work  of  as  many  weeks.  He  has  not 
caught  from  the  shop-keeper  the  trick  of  display- 
ing his  wares  in  a  window.  But  the  "  portrait- 
painter"  ! 

"Portrait-painting"  pays, — that  is  the  worst  of  it 
all.  It  is  the  one  branch  of  the  art  of  painting  that 
can  be  followed  as  methodically  as  the  making  of 
clothes.  It  is,  for  that  matter,  closely  allied  to  and 
quite  dependent  upon  the  tailor  and  the  dressmaker. 
Worth  has  made  more  portraits  than  any  one  painter 
in  Paris. 

246 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


The  "portrait-painter"  must  dress  his  manikin  in 
clothes  that  will  "  paint,"  for  the  manikin  is  worse 
than  nothing  for  the  picture.  There  must  be  a 
gown  of  brilliant  stuffs,  and  either  a  hat  or  the 
hair-dresser, — who  also  has  made  and  unmade 
portraits, — or  there  must  be  a  uniform,  hunting- 
breeches,  judge's  gown  and  wig,  accordingly  as  the 
manikin  is  woman  or  man  ;  and  it  is  the  theatrical 
trappings  that  are  painted,  and,  incidentally  thereto, 
— manikin. 

Reynolds  painted  something  like  two  thousand 
canvases.  In  1758  one  hundred  and  fifty  persons 
sat  to  him, — an  average  of  three  portraits  a  week. 
He  was  as  methodical  as  an  automatic  machine. 
Rose  early,  breakfasted  at  nine,  was  in  the  studio  at 
ten,  worked  by  himself  until  eleven,  when  his  first 
sitter  of  the  day  would  appear,  to  be  succeeded  by 
another  precisely  one  hour  later,  and  so  on,  a  sitter 
an  hour,  until  four  o'clock,  when  the  popular  painter 
made  himself  ready  for  a  plunge  in  the  social  swirl. 

Portraits  produced  under  such  conditions  cannot 
be  made  more  than  technically  brilliant, — superficial 
likenesses  of  the  great  majority  of  the  sitters, — and 
are  unworthy  the  painter's  art. 

After  a  brief  study  of  their  careers,  and  without 
seeing  a  portrait  by  either,  one  would  be  warranted 
in  looking  for  a  masterpiece  among  Gainsborough's 
two  hundred  and  twenty  portraits  rather  than  among 
the  two  thousand  canvases  of  Reynolds. 

Great  facility  of  execution  is  not  necessarily  a 
247 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


condemnatory  feature  of  a  man's  art,  but  it  is  a 
dangerous  feature,  and  with  most  men  it  is  a  fatal 
feature. 

The  hand  of  the  master  must  be  entirely  subser- 
vient to  the  brain.  No  obstacle  should  intervene 
between  the  inspiration  and  its  complete  expression, 
but  the  hand  must  not  force  the  imagination  ;  and 
it  is  true  that  command  of  technic — mere  digital 
dexterity — does  lead  the  performer,  whether  painter 
or  musician,  to  speak  when  he  has  nothing  to  say. 

Happily  for  the  reputation  of  Reynolds,  he  painted 
now  and  then  a  portrait  in  which  he  took  more 
interest,  and  these  have  some — possibly  not  many 
— of  the  qualities  that  live.  For  the  most  part  his 
reputation  rests  on  mere  volume  of  brilliant  and 
high-grade  work, — very  much  as  one  factory  has  a 
greater  reputation  than  another.  And  he  did  more 
than  any  man  who  ever  lived  to  reduce  "  portrait- 
painting"  to  a  trade,  a  mechanical  pursuit. 

In  the  modern  sense  of  the  phrase,  he  was  one 
of  the  greatest  of  "  portrait-painters  ;"  certainly  the 
most  "  successful" — again  in  the  modern  sense — 
the  world  has  known,  of  talent  supreme,  in  genius 
wanting. 

But  there  are  portraits  and  portraits, — to  illus- 
trate : 

There  are  portraits. 

There  are  portraits  that  are  also  pictures. 
There  are  pictures  that  are  also  portraits. 
There  are  pictures. 

248 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


The  first-named  are  mere  likenesses, — photo- 
graphs on  canvas.  This  sort  is  very  common  and 
very  popular ;  they  are  made  with  great  facility 
by  the  professional  "portrait-painters"  and  they  are 
greatly  applauded  wherever  seen.  They  have  their 
fixed  prices, — so  much  for  half,  three-quarters,  or 
full-length, — and  they  are  quite  a  matter  of  com- 
merce, with  a  maximum  of  dexterity  and  a  minimum 
of  art.  There  are  those  who  can  and  do  paint  great 
portraits,  who  turn  out  endless  numbers  of  these 
mechanically-made  things  to  the  detriment  of  their 
art.  Of  the  best  of  this  sort  were  the  most  of 
Reynolds's  portraits, — superficially  brilliant  and  at- 
tractive likenesses  that  ought  not  to  be  seen  outside 
the  family  circle  for  which  they  were  intended.  Of 
this  same  sort  are  most  of  those  startling  people  who 
issue  from  the  studios  of  the  popular  "portrait- 
painters"  of  to-day,  to  thrust  the  nonentity  of  their 
individualities  upon  us.  The  identity  of  the  "  Blue- 
Boy,"  by  Gainesborough,  is  quite  immaterial  ;  the 
identity  of  the  "Shrimp-Girl,"  by  Hogarth,  is  like- 
wise immaterial  ;  the  identity  of  the  "  Child  with  a 
Sword,"  by  Manet,  is  of  no  importance, — for  these 
are  pictures,  though  at  the  same  time  portraits. 

But  the  identity  of  the  "  portraits"  by  the  popu- 
lar 4<  portrait-painter"  is,  in  ninety-nine  instances 
out  of  a  hundred,  a  matter  of  great  importance,  the 
value  of  the  canvas  being  enhanced  by  the  celebrity 
or  notoriety  of  the  sitter. 

The  mere  portrait  is  better  than  no  portrait  at 
all,  but  it  should  be  a  fixture  in  its  own  household,  a 

249 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


family  heirloom,  and  strictly  entailed  ;  descendants 
failing,  then  to  the  midden. 

Between  the  mere  portrait  and  the  portrait  that 
possesses  some  of  the  universal  qualities  of  a  work 
of  art  the  interval  is  wide,  and  almost  one  of  kind 
rather  than  degree,  though  no  line  of  strict  demar- 
cation can  be  drawn  ;  while,  as  between  the  paint- 
ing that  is  primarily  a  portrait,  with  incidental  uni- 
versal qualities,  and  a  painting  that  is  primarily  a 
work  of  art,  and  incidentally  a  portrait,  the  difference 
is  entirely  a  matter  of  degree. 

In,  for  instance,  the  "  Blue-Boy"  the  portrait  ele- 
ment predominates;  in  the  "Shrimp-Girl"  the  uni- 
versal element  predominates.  In  the  former,  the 
portrait  was  uppermost  in  the  painter's  mind  ;  in 
the  other,  the  picture  was  the  only  consideration. 
And  yet  Hogarth's  is  undoubtedly  the  more  perfect 
portrait,  though  slight  and  sketchy  as  compared  with 
the  composition  and  finish  of  the  Gainsborough. 

In  fact,  the  "Shrimp-Girl,"  as  an  abstract  work 
of  art,  is  a  degree  higher  than  the  picture-portrait. 
It  is  a  picture, — a  work  of  art  in  the  doing  of  which 
no  considerations  other  than  the  artistic  intention 
moved  the  painter. 

A  mere  portrait,  in  the  dash  and  brilliancy  of  its 
execution  or  the  decorative  quality  of  its  color,  may 
be  better  than  a  picture  of  indifferent  execution  or 
poor  color  ;  the  one  may  be  worth  keeping  in  a 
limited  circle,  or  even  of  some  use  decoratively  in  a 
more  general  way,  while  the  other  is  not  worth  pre- 
serving at  all.    But  there  is  hope  for  the  man  who 

250 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


attempts  to  paint  a  picture,  to  produce  a  work  of 
art,  though  he  fails  miserably  ;  whereas  there  is  no 
hope  for  the  brilliant  technician  whose  sole  ambition 
is  to  paint  and  sell  his  canvas  photographs  as  rap- 
idly as  possible. 

Manet's  "  Child  with  a  Sword"  is  a  superb  por- 
trait of  a  child, — a  model,  to  be  sure,  but  none  the 
less  a  little  human  being,  with  as  many  attributes  of 
life  and  humanity  as  the  child  whose  parents  pay 
the  price  of  a  likeness.  Manet's  chief  merit  lies  in 
the  fact  that  all  his  life  long  he  tried  to  paint  pictures, 
sometimes  successfully,  sometimes  unsuccessfully ; 
never  with  any  profound  insight  into  human  nature 
or  life,  but  always  straightforwardly  and  sincerely, 
and  with  a  strong,  firm  hand.  He  painted  many 
portraits  of  his  sister  and  his  friends,  but  invariably 
with  the  intention  to  do  something  of  more  universal 
validity  than  a  likeness. 

The  casual  visitor  to  the  Louvre  may  examine  at 
his  leisure  the  little  "  Infanta"  and  the  "  Mona  Lisa," 
both  great  pictures,  both  great  portraits,  but  of  the 
two  the  portrait  element  is  rather  more  pronounced 
in  the  Velasquez  than  in  the  Leonardo. 

The  little  "  Infanta"  is  there  for  all  time  on  the 
canvas,  precisely  as  she  was  in  the  painter's  studio, 
a  wonderful  portrait  of  a  child,  a  wonderful  picture 
of  a  bit  of  humanity,  but  less  of  a  type  than  an  in- 
dividual. 

As  for  the  "  Mona  Lisa,"  who  can  doubt  that  in 
the  long  years  the  painter  worked  on  this  portrait 
all  superficial  resemblances  and  characteristics  dis- 

251 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


appeared  until  the  constant,  the  elemental,  the  soul 
alone  remained  ?  It  possesses  many  of  the  qualities 
of  the  idealized  madonnas  of  Italian  religious  art. 
It  began  with  the  painter's  admiration  of  a  beautiful 
woman,  an  individual  of  that  day  and  generation ;  it 
ended  with  an  ideal  which  will  last  so  long  as  the 
slowly-darkening  pigments  retain  line  and  linea- 
ments. 

The  mere  adding  of  accessories  in  the  way  of 
composition  or  background  or  the  adoption  of  a 
classic  or  theatrical  pose  may  make  the  work  more 
decorative,  but  it  does  not  enhance  the  real  merit 
of  the  portrait,  the  status  of  which  cannot  be  altered 
by  the  surrounding  canvas. 

When  Mrs.  Siddons  entered  Reynolds's  studio,  he 
said,  as  he  conducted  her  to  the  raised  platform  : 

"Take  your  seat  upon  the  throne  for  which  you 
were  born,  and  suggest  to  me  the  idea  of  the  *  Tragic 
Muse.'  " 

"I  made  a  few  steps,"  relates  the  actress,  "and 
then  took  at  once  the  attitude  in  which  the  '  Tragic 
Muse'  has  remained." 

When  the  portrait  was  finished,  Sir  Joshua  said  : 

"  I  cannot  lose  this  opportunity  of  sending  my 
name  to  posterity  on  the  hem  of  your  garment,"  and 
he  placed  his  signature  on  the  border  of  the  gown. 

All  of  which  are  the  conditions  under  which  the- 
atrical and  meritricious  art  is  produced.  The  por- 
trait of  a  woman  posing  as  the  "Tragic  Muse"  may 
turn  out  well,  but  the  chances  are  otherwise. 

252 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


There  are  "  portrait-painters"  who  are  better  than 
others,  and  the  best  of  all  were  Rembrandt  and 
Velasquez,  the  latter  the  greatest  portrait-painter 
who  ever  lived, — so  great  that  his  portraits  are  great 
as  pictures  ;  but  not  quite  in  the  abstract  sense  that 
a  painting  by  Raphael  is  a  picture, — a  bright  and 
beautiful  song  in  line  and  color  ;  not  quite  in  the 
sense  that  a  painting  by  Angelo  is  a  picture, — the 
tumultuous  outpouring  of  a  human  soul  ;  not  quite 
in  the  subtle  sense  that  a  painting  by  Whistler  is  a 
picture, — a  harmony  to  delight  the  eye  as  music 
delights  the  ear. 

Rembrandt  and  Velasquez  were  great  in  technical 
directions  in  their  portraiture,  and  their  achieve- 
ments remain  unchallenged  ;  but  in  the  painting  of 
portraits  each  was  something  of  the  "  portrait- 
painter," — not  the  facile,  commercial  painter  of  to- 
day, but  they  painted  portraits  to  earn  their  living. 
Now  and  then  the  portrait  was  a  labor  of  love  and 
a  great  picture,  seldom — at  least  in  the  case  of 
Velasquez — a  matter  of  drudgery,  and  therefore  a 
failure. 

Velasquez  was  so  happily  situated  in  the  court  at 
Madrid,  of  the  king's  household,  on  friendly  terms 
with  the  royal  family,  that  he  painted  their  portraits 
with  far  more  devotion  and  interest  than  he  could 
possibly  feel  towards  a  stranger. 

A  portrait  of  Philip  the  Fourth  by  Velasquez 
ought  to  be  as  good  a  work  of  art  as  a  bust  of 
Pericles  by  Phidias, — and  that  is  about  the  most 
that  can  be  said  in  portraiture, — but  a  bust  of 

253 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


Pericles  would  not  be  the  best  that  the  art  of 
Phidias  could  do,  for  his  art  was  not  limited  by 
lineaments. 

Wherein  the  art  of  Whistler  differed  from  the  art 
of  Rembrandt  and  Velasquez  in  the  painting  of 
human  likenesses  is  as  follows  : 

With  Whistler  the  sitter,  whether  model  or  patron, 
was  subordinated  to  the  composition,  to  the  har- 
mony of  line  and  color, — was  simply  an  integral  part 
of  the  larger  scheme  in  the  painter's  mind. 

With  Rembrandt  and  Velasquez  the  sitter  was 
the  important  feature,  everything  else  being  quite 
casual ;  the  object  in  mind  being  to  paint  a  great 
portrait,  to  put  a  human  being  on  canvas.  A  worthy 
object  when  worthily  done,  but  not  quite  so  pure 
and  subtle  and  abstract,  not  quite  so  free  from  limi- 
tations of  time  and  place  and  person  as  the  intention 
to  do  something  of  universal  validity  in  which  the 
individual  shall  not  obtrude  beyond  his  due  measure 
of  importance. 

In  the  attempt  to  do  things  that  had  never  been 
done  before,  in  the  attempt  to  make  painting  as  pure 
an  art  as  music  and  poetry,  Whistler  possibly  made 
many  failures,  or  rather  many  more  or  less  incom- 
plete successes,  but  in  his  best  things  it  is  undeniably 
true  that  he  produced  pictures  wherein  the  portrait 
element  was  as  subtly  if  not  as  "  strongly"  developed 
as  in  anything  ever  before  painted,  and  wherein  at 
the  same  time  that  element  was  successfully  sub- 
ordinated to  ideals  more  refined  and  universal. 

254 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


Both  Rembrandt  and  Velasquez  did  "stronger" 
things  than  Whistler, — that  is  to  say,  they  placed 
their  subjects  more  positively  and  forcefully  on  the 
canvas,  so  that  they  stand  out  more  aggressively,  and 
fill  not  only  their  frames  but  the  room  ;  they  do 
not  obtrude,  but  they  are  great  big  characterizations 
which  make  themselves  felt  in  any  company. 

Whistler's  portraits,  like  all  his  pictures,  retire 
within  their  frames,  do  not  assert  themselves,  are  not 
"  strong,"  as  the  term  is  quite  legitimately  used  in 
the  sense  of  powerful,  positive,  and  vigorous.  His 
portraits  are  neither  "stunning"  nor  overwhelming; 
they  are  so  quiet,  restful,  and  harmonious  as  to 
almost  escape  notice.  There  is  a  wraith-like  qual- 
ity about  some  of  them  that  has  often  been  noted  ; 
some  of  them  seem  the  portraits  of  shadows  rather 
than  realities. 

A  woman  standing  before  "  The  Fur  Jacket"  said  : 

"  So  that  is  a  portrait  of  a  woman  by  Whistler?" 

"No,"  replied  her  companion;  "it  is  Whistler's 
impression  of  a  woman." 

Neither  was  right, — for,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is 
simply  a  composition  of  line  and  color  wherein  a 
woman — in  this  case  a  model — is  the  central  figure 
of  the  arrangement  The  painting  of  a  likeness 
was  not  in  Whistler's  mind  at  all.  The  painting  of 
a  woman,  either  as  a  type  or  an  individual,  probably 
did  not  enter  his  head  ;  but  he  had  in  mind  a  scheme 
which  pleased  him,  and  this  scheme  he  placed  on 
canvas.  It  is  quite  likely  the  woman  happened  to 
enter  his  studio,  and  the  effect  of  figure,  costume, 

255 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


and  environment  caught  his  fancy.  That  was  the 
way  many  of  the  portraits  were  begun. 

Lady  Archibald  Campbell  was  nothing  to  him 
except  a  possibility  ;  she  was  to  him  as  a  theme,  as 
a  motive  to  a  musician.  At  the  outset  he  had  all 
sorts  of  trouble  with  the  picture  ;  and  it  was  not 
until  one  day  Lady  Campbell  happened  to  come  in 
with  her  fur  cape  over  her  shoulders  that  he  made 
a  new  start  and  painted  the  picture.  It  is  a  great 
portrait,  one  of  his  very  best,  a  haunting  likeness  of  a 
woman  ;  not  such  a  photographic  likeness  as  friends 
and  relatives  demand,  but  just  the  likeness  that 
posterity  demands  :  a  woman,  a  type,  with  all  the 
charm,  all  the  refinement,  all  the  real,  the  true,  the 
elusive  qualities  of  a  woman, — in  short,  those  quali- 
ties of  mind  and  body  which  reappear  in  descend- 
ants of  the  third  and  fourth  generation  and  demon- 
strate the  faithfulness  of  the  portrait. 

There  is  no  portrait  by  Rembrandt  or  Velasquez 
which  at  all  resembles  Whistler's  portrait  of  his 
mother. 

It  is  not  at  all  like  anything  by  Rembrandt ; 
there  is  a  hint  of  the  blacks  and  grays  of  Velasquez, 
but  that  is  a  superficial  observation  made  by  every 
passing  tourist. 

In  scheme,  composition,  intention,  and  execution 
the  picture  is  essentially  different  from  anything  the 
great  Spanish  painter  ever  did.  One  ought  to 
recognize  the  fundamental  difference  between  the 
two  artists  on  looking  at  the  little  "Infanta"  in  the 

256 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


Louvre, — there  is  no  need  to  go  farther.  Velasquez 
had  a  firm  strong  grasp  of  life  about  him  which 
Whistler  lacked.  The  one  was  a  man  among  men, 
the  other  a  poet  among  poets,  a  musician  among 
musicians,  a  dreamer  among  dreamers ;  the  one 
painted  men,  women,  and  children  because  they 
interested  him,  the  other  painted  them  because  he 
was  interested  in  beautiful  things  ;  the  one  viewed 
the  world  by  day  with  his  feet  planted  firmly  on  the 
ground,  the  other  viewed  it  by  dusk  and  by  night 
with  his  head  in  the  mist  and  clouds. 

There  was  the  same  difference  between  Velasquez 
and  Whistler  that  there  is  between  two  poets,  one 
of  whom — like,  say,  Byron — deals  with  life  with  a 
sure  hand,  the  other — like  Keats — deals  with  beauty 
as  the  finest  thing  in  life. 

In  poetry  even  the  casual  reader  does  not  con- 
found men  of  opposite  temperaments,  though  both 
use  the  medium  of  verse  to  express  their  thoughts  ; 
but  in  painting,  people  habitually  confuse  men  who 
have  absolutely  nothing  in  common  except  the  me- 
dium they  use.  And  yet  for  every  poet  there  is 
somewhere  a  painter  of  like  moods  and  temper- 
ament. Men  do  not  differ,  though  some  use  poetry, 
some  music,  some  sculpture,  some  painting  to  ex- 
press their  fancies  and  convictions. 

Were  one  so  disposed,  it  would  not  be  difficult  to 
point  out  the  Browning,  the  Tennyson,  the  Whitman, 
the  Bach,  the  Beethoven,  the  Wagner  of  painting, 
for  the  human  soul  is  the  same  in  every  art. 

17  257 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


Beyond  the  fact,  therefore,  that  Velasquez  and 
Whistler  both  expressed  themselves  by  means  of 
painting,  they  were  not  at  all  alike,  and  their  work 
must  reflect  their  fundamental  differences. 

Whistler,  in  susceptibility  to  color  and  fleeting 
line,  in  love  for  abstract,  almost  ethereal  beauty, 
was  akin  to  the  choice  spirits  of  the  far  East.  He 
found  more  that  appealed  to  him  and  affected  him 
in  the  blue-and-white  porcelain  of  China  than  in 
any  painting  from  Madrid.  Velasquez  might  give 
him  many  valuable  hints  as  to  the  use  of  color,  as 
to  the  practice  of  his  art,  but  no  suggestions  what- 
soever as  to  ends  and  aims.  These  motives  he 
found  in  the  East,  in  those  wonderful  lands  where 
men,  leaving  nature  far  behind,  almost  touched 
heaven  in  their  philosophies,  and  did  seize  some  of 
heaven's  infinite  blues  and  silvery  grays  in  their  arts. 

It  is  idle  to  compare  Whistler's  portraits  with 
those  of  any  other  man,  for  the  qualities  that  make 
those  of  others  great  are  not  found  accentuated  in 
his,  and  the  qualities  that  make  his  great  are  not 
found  refined  in  those  of  others. 

The  matter  of  likeness,  which  troubles  most  peo- 
ple, is  of  vital  importance  to  the  "  portrait-painter," 
since  it  is  his  sole  excuse,  the  only  justification  he 
has  for  existing,  but  to  art  it  does  not  matter  at 
all. 

Likeness  has  no  objective  existence.  It  is  en- 
tirely a  matter  of  impression,  a  subjective  realiza- 

258 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


tion.  Beyond  the  size  of  the  mouth,  the  shape  of 
the  nose,  the  color  of  the  eyes  there  is  little  to 
what  is  called  a  "likeness."  A  person  never  looks 
the  same  to  different  people  or  on  different  occa- 
sions. 

To  the  casual  acquaintance  a  "likeness"  is  but 
skin  deep  ;  to  the  friend  of  a  lifetime  it  is  alto- 
gether a  matter  of  character.  A  portrait  that 
satisfies  a  wife  fails  to  please  a  mother,  and  one  that 
provokes  the  applause  of  the  passing  throng  is  a 
disappointment  to  the  family. 

For  what  is  one  man's  appearance  to  another  but 
the  impact  of  personality  upon  personality,  the 
coming  together  of  two  vitalities  clothed  in  flesh 
and  blood.  But  some  there  are  who  see  only  the 
clothes  of  another, — the  very  outward  shell  and 
husk  ;  others  who  see  only  the  flesh  and  blood, — 
the  physical  covering  ;  others  who  get  at  the  man 
and  know  him  in  part  as  he  is.  For  whom  shall  the 
portrait  be  painted, — for  those  who  see,  or  those 
who  know,  or  those  who  love?  And  by  whom 
shall  the  portrait  be  painted, — by  the  tailor-painter 
or  by  the  soul-painter  ? 

The  world  is  filled  with  painters  of  the  super- 
ficial, with  painters  of  husks  ;  and  those  are  the 
painters  who  impress  the  multitude,  for  they  see 
what  the  multitude  see,  and  there  is  no  mystery  to 
puzzle,  but  everything  is  superficial  and  plain. 

A  likeness  is  the  physical  semblance  of  the  soul  ; 
and  the  only  likeness  worth  having  on  canvas  or  in 

259 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


marble  or  in  words  is  the  faithful  transcript  of  the 
impression  the  sitter  makes  on  the  artist. 

From  the  fact  that  this  impression  changes  and 
deepens  from  hour  to  hour,  and  day  to  day,  and 
week  to  week,  as  the  two  beings  come  to  know  each 
other,  it  follows  that  the  best  portrait  can  only  be 
painted  after  sufficient  acquaintance  for  the  dissipa- 
tion of  those  superficial  traits  and  characteristics 
which  envelop  everyone  like  a  fog. 

It  is  the  special  province  of  caricature  to  seize 
upon  a  man's  superficialities  and  peculiarities,  and 
make  the  most  or  the  worst  of  them  ;  but  it  is  the 
business  of  portraiture  to  get  beneath  and  give  a 
glimpse,  an  impression  of  the  true  man. 

To  this  end  Whistler's  many  and  long  sittings 
were  of  inestimable  service.  The  portrait  grew 
with  his  acqaintance  with  his  sitter.  What  first 
pleased  him  as  a  scheme  of  color  and  an  agreeable 
personality  came  in  time  to  interest  him  as  a  human 
being,  with  the  result  in  the  most  successful  can- 
vases  that  the  picture  would  be  all  he  desired  as  a 
harmony,  as  a  song  without  sound,  and  also  a  mar- 
vellously subtle  realization  of  his  impression  of  the 
human  being  he  had  learned  to  know. 

In  one  respect  the  identity  of  a  portrait  is  not  a 
matter  of  entire  indifference,  for  the  attitude  of  the 
painter  is  more  or  less  affected  by  his  relation  to  the 
sitter,  and  whatever  affects  him  affects  his  work. 

Many  an  artist  does  his  best  when  his  wife  or 
child  or  some  one  he  loves  is  the  model  ;  and  the 

260 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


man  who  could  not  paint  his  mother  a  little  better, 
a  little  more  sympathetically  than  a  stranger  would 
be  soulless  indeed.  In  poetry  the  influence  of  a 
mistress  is  a  matter  of  tradition. 

The  picture,  as  a  work  of  art,  must  be  judged  in- 
dependently of  its  associations.  It  stands  by  itself, 
and  is  good,  bad,  or  indifferent,  regardless  of  the 
painter  or  the  conditions  under  which  it  was  done  ; 
but  some  of  its  excellencies  may  be  explained  if  we 
learn  it  was  a  labor  of  love. 

It  would  not  add  a  feather's  weight  to  the  superb 
qualitities  of  the  "Hermes,"  at  Olympia,  if  it  were 
discovered  to  be  a  likeness  of  the  sculptor's  son  ; 
nor  would  it  detract  in  the  slightest  degree  from  its 
perfection  if  it  were  found  to  have  been  the  work 
of  an  unknown  man,  and  not  by  Praxiteles, — 
though  in  the  latter  case  there  would  be  a  great 
abatement  of  enthusiasm  on  the  part  of  the  touring 
public.  But  if  a  number  of  the  master's  works 
were  in  existence,  and  it  was  perceived  that  the 
"  Hermes"  possessed  certain  qualities  of  tenderness, 
certain  indefinable  elements  of  superiority  that 
made  it  the  masterpiece,  the  knowledge  that  some 
one  whom  the  sculptor  loved  dearly  had  posed 
would  help  to  explain  the  almost  imperceptible  dif- 
ferences. The  work  would  stand  on  its  own  merits  ; 
but  one  of  the  reasons  why  it  stood  so  high  would 
be  found  in  the  relationship  between  sculptor  and 
model. 

By  many  who  should  be  qualified  to  speak  Whist- 
ler's portrait  of  his  mother  is  considered  his  master- 

261 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


piece,  possibly  by  some  because  it  is  of  his  mother, 
but  by  others  quite  independently  of  the  relation- 
ship. 

Others  there  are  who  consider  the  portrait  of 
Carlyle  his  masterpiece,  possibly  because  it  is  of 
Carlyle,  but  by  some  independently  of  the  identity 
of  the  sitter. 

Seldom  is  the  portrait  of  any  unknown  or  less 
known  sitter  mentioned  in  comparison, — all  of  which 
goes  to  show  the  bias  which  results  from  knowing 
the  identity. 

Every  Scotchman  would  insist  upon  the  Carlyle, 
most  of  them  quite  unconscious  of  the  patriotic 
bias. 

There  are  pictures  far  more  subtle  in  color,  more 
"  Whistlerian"  in  effect,  more  distinctively  the  crea- 
tions of  a  great  poet  in  color  than  these  two  por- 
traits, but  as  compared  with  any  two,  or  even  three, 
or,  possibly,  four  others,  the  preservation  of  these 
are  of  vital  importance  to  the  fame  of  the  artist  and 
the  advancement  of  art.  In  this  sense  they  may  be 
considered  his  masterpieces,  and  of  the  two  the  one 
that  hangs  in  the  Luxembourg  is  far  the  finer.  It 
is  one  of  the  few  pictures  that  leave  nothing  to  be 
said  by  painter  or  layman. 

It  is  more  than  a  portrait, — it  is  a  large  composi- 
tion of  line  and  form  and  color  ;  it  is  a  great  portrait 
made  subordinate  to  a  great  picture. 

Whistler  was  seldom  so  satisfied  with  a  portrait 
that  he  was  willing  to  part  with  it.    He  could  always 

262 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


see  things  he  wished  to  change, — partly,  no  doubt, 
because  his  impression  of  his  subject  changed  from 
day  to  day, — and  he  would  often  keep  a  portrait  by 
him  for  months  and  years  before  exhibiting.  In 
fact  he  exhibited  a  like  reserve  about  nearly  all  his 
work.  It  was  next  to  impossible  to  get  anything 
from  him  for  current  exhibitions. 

He  would  faithfully  and  with  the  best  of  intentions 
promise  to  have  something  ready.  The  time  would 
come,  and  he  would  be  found  still  at  work  on  the 
canvas  as  leisurely  as  if  so  many  centuries  were 
before  him  instead  of  so  many  hours,  Nothing 
ever  induced  him  to  either  hasten  his  work  or  ex- 
hibit it  unfinished.  The  fact  that  he  might  not 
be  represented  gave  him  not  the  slightest  uneasi- 
ness. The  result  was  that  the  Whistlers  seen  were 
generally  old  Whistlers, — all  the  better  for  that. 
For  instance,  of  the  pictures  exhibited  at  the  World's 
Columbian  Exposition,  not  one  had  been  painted 
within  ten  or  fifteen  years, — two  dated  as  far  back 
as  1864. 

At  the  Antwerp  Exhibition,  a  year  later,  there  was 
certainly  not  a  picture  painted  within  ten  years.  By 
this  method  the  artist  had  the  advantage  of  his  own 
mature  judgment  and  the  assistance  of  time, — and 
time  wields  a  great  brush.  There  is  no  glaze, 
no  finish,  no  varnish  equal  to  that  dispensed  so 
evenly,  so  mellowly,  so  softly,  so  beautifully  by  time. 
Furthermore,  there  is  no  judgment  so  sound,  no 
criticism  so  penetrating  as  the  judgment  and  criti- 
cism of  the  artist  himself  on  his  own  work  after  the 

263 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


enthusiasm  of  the  hour  has  worn  off  One  of  the 
finest  indications  of  Whistler's  greatness  was  this 
reserve  in  the  exhibition  of  new  work,  this  ability  to 
do  fine  things  and  quietly  put  them  away  out  of 
sight,  until  with  lapse  of  time  they  could  be  looked 
over  dispassionately,  repainted  if  necessary,  and 
either  banished  forever  or  exhibited  in  all  their 
glory. 

Most  artists  delight  in  seeing  exhibited  imme- 
diately— often  prematurely — the  things  they  do, 
and  the  delight  is  not  unnatural.  Others  there  are 
who,  on  account  of  numerous  disappointments  or 
from  queer  crotchets,  are  opposed  altogether  to  ex- 
hibitions. Whistler  was  not  of  the  latter  class  ;  he 
was  quite  human  enough  to  enjoy,  as  he  himself 
said,  the  honors  which  come  from  well-conducted 
exhibitions.  He  was  an  officer  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor,  had  received  awards  and  honors  without 
number,  including  the  extraordinary  award  of  the 
gold  medal  for  etching  and  also  for  painting  at  the 
Paris  Exposition  of  1900,  and  an  honorary  degree 
from  a  Scotch  University.  These  honors  sat  lightly, 
but  by  no  means  uneasily,  upon  him. 

His  unwillingness  to  part  with  work  led  to  no  end 
of  trouble  and  misunderstanding.  People  could 
not  understand  why  they  should  not  have  what  they 
had  bargained  and  often  paid  for,  why  there  should 
be  any  delay  whatsoever,  much  less  why  after  many 
demands  their  money  should  be  returned  and  the 
picture  kept  by  the  artist. 

264 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


All  this  is,  of  course,  diametrically  opposed  to  the 
rules  of  commerce,  and  Whistler  has  been  blamed 
for  his  unreliability,  to  use  the  mildest  term  urged 
against  him. 

Without  knowing  him  it  is  impossible  to  under- 
stand his  attitude  towards  his  pictures. 

In  the  first  place,  he  was  profoundly  attached  to 
them,  whether  sold  or  not.  They  were  and  re- 
mained his  work  ;  and  in  a  humorous  way  he  fre- 
quently insisted  upon  this  superior  right  of  the 
creator, — as  on  the  fly-leaf  of  the  catalogue  of  his 
London  exhibition,  which  read  : 

' '  Nocturnes,  Marines,  and  Chevalet  Pieces  :  a  catalogue. 
Small  collection  kindly  lent  their  owners. ' ' 

And  sometimes  this  assertion  of  a  superior  equity 
went  so  far  as  to  interfere  with  the  right  of  posses- 
sion, which  was  quite  beyond  the  comprehension  of 
the  multitude. 

The  story  is  told  that  a  certain  Lady  B  pur- 
chased one  of  his  pictures,  but  was  never  able  to 
get  it 

One  day  she  drove  to  the  studio  in  her  victoria. 
Mr.  Whistler  went  out  to  the  sidewalk  to  greet  her. 

"Mr.  Whistler,"  she  said,  "two  years  ago  I  bought  one 
of  your  pictures,  a  beautiful  thing,  and  I  have  never  been 
able  to  hang  it  on  my  walls.  It  has  been  loaned  to  one 
exhibition  after  another.  Now,  to-day  I  have  my  carriage 
with  me,  and  I  would  like  to  take  it  home  with  me.  I  am 
told  it  is  in  your  possession." 

' '  Dear  lady, ' '  returned  Whistler,  ' '  you  ask  the  impossi- 
265 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


ble.  I  will  send  it  to  you  at  the  earliest  practicable  moment. 
You  know, — those  last  slight  touches, — which  achieve  per- 
fection,— make  all  things  beautiful."  And  so  forth  and  so 
forth,  to  the  same  effect,  and  the  lady  drove  off  without  her 
picture. 

After  she  had  departed,  Whistler  commenced  to  poke 
around  the  studio,  and,  to  the  great  astonishment  of  a  friend 
who  had  been  an  involuntary  listener  to  the  above  conversa- 
tion, he  brought  forth  a  canvas. 

"  Here  it  is,"  he  said.  "  She  was  right  about  one  thing, 
it  is  beautiful. ' '    And  it  was  beautiful. 

"But  the  impudence  of  these  people,"  he  continued, 
* '  who  think  that  because  they  pay  a  few  paltry  hundred 
pounds  they  own  my  pictures.  Why,  it  merely  secures  them 
the  privilege  of  having  them  in  their  houses  now  and  then  ! 
The  pictures  are  mine  /' ' 

However,  this  side  of  Whistler  is  on  record  in 
the  case  of  ''The  Baronet  vs.  The  Butterfly,"  as  he 
called  the  suit  of  Sir  William  Eden  to  obtain  pos- 
session of  the  portrait  of  Lady  Eden. 

As  the  circumstances  of  this  famous  case  illustrate 
Whistler's  attitude  towards  his  work,  and  at  the 
same  time  his  attitude  towards  those  who  tried  to 
deal  commercially  with  him,  they  are  worth  recall- 
ing : 

In  June,  1893,  Sir  William  Eden,  a  wealthy 
English  baronet,  wrote  a  letter  to  Goupil  &  Co.,  in 
London,  asking  what  Mr.  Whistler's  price  would  be 
for  a  small  picture  of  Lady  Eden,  and  he  was  in- 
formed that  the  price  would  be  about  five  hundred 
guineas.  He  replied,  stating  that  he  thought  the 
price  too  high,  and  said  that  he  would  call  and  see 

266 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


Mr.  Whistler  in  Paris.  Instead  of  so  doing,  he 
applied  to  a  common  friend,  who  wrote  Whistler 
saying  that  the  portrait  "  is  for  a  friend  of  mine,  on 
the  one  hand,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  you  will  have 
to  paint  a  very  lovely  and  very  elegant  woman, 
whose  portrait  you  will  be  delighted  to  undertake," 
and  "  under  the  circumstances  I  think  you  might 
make  very  liberal  concessions." 

The  matter  of  price  was  always  a  matter  of  indif- 
ference to  Whistler, — if  also  of  indifference  to  the 
other  party, — and  when  Sir  William  wrote  concern- 
ing the  price,  Whistler  replied  very  cordially  in 
January,  1894,  as  follows  : 

"Dear  Sir  William  Eden  :  Your  letter  has  only  just 
been  handed  to  me,  but  this  may  still,  perhaps,  reach  you  in 
the  afternoon.  It  is  quite  understood  as  to  the  little  painting, 
and  I  think  there  can  be  no  difficulty  about  the  sum.  The 
only  really  interesting  point  is  that  I  should  be  able  to 
produce  the  charming  picture  which,  with  the  aid  of  Lady 
Eden,  ought  to  be  expected.  Once  undertaken,  however 
slight,  for  me  one  work  is  as  important  as  another,  and 
even  more  so,  as  Calino  said.  As  for  the  amount,  Moore, 
I  fancy,  spoke  of  one  hundred  to  one  hundred  and  fifty 
pounds." 

The  letter  is  quite  characteristic  of  the  artist. 
His  interest  was  in  the  possibility  of  producing  a 
charming  picture.  The  amount  he  mentioned  was 
less  than  he  ordinarily  asked  for  a  water-color 
sketch,  and  one-fifth  that  named  by  Goupil  &  Co. 

It  must  be  noted  that  the  amount  is  not  fixed 
by  Whistler,  but  is  left  at  from  one  hundred  to  one 

267 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  depending  of  course  upon 
the  painter's  own  feeling  regarding  his  work,  and 
not  depending  in  any  sense  upon  the  whim  of  the 
baronet. 

The  portrait  went  on  towards  completion.  In- 
stead of  painting  a  head,  as  was  originally  suggested, 
Whistler  painted  a  full-length  figure  seated  upon  a 
little  sofa,  the  entire  composition  being  quite  as 
elaborate  an  interior  as  if  the  canvas  had  been  five 
times  the  size.  The  picture  was  about  fourteen  to 
sixteen  inches  long  by  five  or  six  inches  high,  and 
was  such  an  exquisite  bit  of  the  painter's  art  that  a 
representative  of  a  public  gallery,  who  did  not  know 
that  it  was  a  commission,  offered  for  it  twelve  hun- 
dred dollars,  and  higher  offers  were  made. 

Sir  William  Eden  did  not  again  refer  to  the  price, 
although  he  had  many  opportunities  ;  but  on  Febru- 
ary 14,  St.  Valentine's  day,  the  baronet  visited  the 
studio  and  expressed  himself  as  delighted  with  the 
picture.  On  taking  leave,  he  informed  Mr.  Whistler 
that  he  was  about  to  start  for  India  on  a  hunting- 
tour,  and,  taking  an  envelope  from  his  pocket,  he 
handed  it  to  the  artist.  "  Here  is  a  valentine  for 
you.  Look  at  it  after  I  have  gone.  Don't  bother 
about  it  just  now." 

When  the  artist  opened  his  "valentine,"  he  found 
a  check  for  one  hundred  guineas, — the  minimum 
amount  mentioned  in  his  letter.  The  baronet  had 
taken  it  upon  himself  to  fix  the  price  of  the  picture 
on  the  eve  of  his  departure.  The  "valentine"  read 
as  follows  : 

268 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


"4  Rue  de  Presbourg,  Paris,  February  14,  1894. 

"Dear  Mr.  Whistler:  Herewith  your  valentine, — 
cheque  value  one  hundred  guineas.  The  picture  will  always 
be  of  inestimable  value  to  me,  and  will  be  handed  down  as 
an  heirloom  as  long  as  heirlooms  last. 

"  I  shall  always  look  with  pleasure  to  the  painting  of  it, — 
and,  with  thanks,  remain 

"  Yours  sincerely, 

"William  Eden." 

To  which  Whistler  immediately  replied  : 

"no  Rue  du  Bac,  Paris,  February  14. 

"My  Dear  Sir  William:  I  have  your  valentine.  You 
really  are  magnificent,  and  have  scored  all  round. 

"  I  can  only  hope  that  the  little  picture  will  prove  even 
slightly  worthy  of  all  of  us,  and  I  rely  on  Lady  Eden's 
amiable  promise  to  let  me  add  the  few  last  touches  we  know 
of.  She  has  been  so  courageous  and  kind  all  along  in  doing 
her  part. 

"With  best  wishes  again  for  your  journey, 
"Very  faithfully, 

"J.  McNeill  Whistler." 

From  the  legal  point  of  view  Whistler  made  the 
mistake  of  not  immediately  returning  the  check  for 
one  hundred  guineas,  and  the  additional  mistake  of 
exhibiting  the  picture  in  the  Salon  of  the  Champ 
de  Mars  in  the  spring  of  1894,  as  No.  1187,  under 
the  title  of  "  Brown  and  Gold.  Portrait  of  Lady 
E  ." 

But  ultimately  the  one  hundred  guineas  were  re- 
turned, and  the  baronet  brought  suit  to  secure  the 
possession  of  the  picture. 

269 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


Whistler  would  have  permitted  himself  to  be 
drawn-and-quartered  before  Sir  William  Eden 
should  have  any  work  of  his.  He  felt,  and  most 
justly,  that  a  work  which  had  been  begun  by  him, 
first,  to  oblige  others,  and  secondly,  as  a  labor  of 
love,  had  been  placed  upon  a  commercial  footing 
of  the  lowest  level.  He  felt  that  there  had  been  no 
real  desire  to  have  one  of  his  pictures  on  account 
of  its  artistic  merit,  but  that  there  had  been  an  at- 
tempt to  secure  something  of  commercial  value  for 
one-third  its  market  price. 

The  episode  of  the  "  valentine,"  truly  ingeni- 
ously devised,  completely  changed  the  relations 
between  the  parties.  He  painted  out  the  little 
portrait,  substituted  another  head,  and  stood  ready 
to  return  the  hundred  guineas  and  to  pay  whatever 
damages  the  court  might  award  the  plaintiff;  but 
under  no  circumstances  should  the  baronet  have 
the  picture. 

For  the  first  time  in  the  annals  of  litigation  the 
question  was  presented  for  final  determination, — 
whether  an  artist  could  be  compelled  to  deliver 
work  which  he  claimed  was  not  yet  finished  to  his 
satisfaction,  even  though  he  had  received  the  price. 
Be  it  said  to  the  credit  of  the  French  tribunal  of 
last  resort,  that  it  held  broadly  that  the  artist  is 
master  and  proprietor  of  his  work  until  such  time 
as  it  shall  please  him  to  deliver  it.  But  that,  failing 
delivery,  he  must  return  the  price  with  interest 
thereon,  together  with  such  damages  as  the  sitter 
may  have  sustained. 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


The  hand  of  the  painter  cannot  be  forced  by  the 
importunity  of  either  patient  or  impatient  patron, 
and  no  man  but  the  painter  himself  can  say  when  a 
painting  is  sufficiently  finished  to  be  delivered. 

Except  in  those  few  cases  where  Whistler  took 
such  intense  dislikes  to  sitters  or  purchasers  that  he 
would  not  permit  them  to  have  his  work  under  any 
circumstances,  there  is  no  instance  where  the  great 
painter,  in  unduly  delaying  the  delivery  of  a  picture, 
had  any  intention  of  depriving  the  owner  of  what 
was  rightfully  his, — namely,  the  possession  of  the 
picture. 

Beyond  the  right  of  possession,  Whistler  did  not 
concede  much  to  the  owner.  Frequently  he  chal- 
lenged the  owner's  right  to  exhibit  without  his  sanc- 
tion, and  he  was  quite  inclined  to  deny  to  the  owner 
the  moral  right  to  sell  at  speculative  prices.  He 
had  a  poor  opinion  of  those  who  would  buy  from 
the  artist  to  sell  later  at  a  profit ;  he  classed  them 
as  dealers. 

Sitters  did  not  always  see  things  in  the  same  light, 
and  became  tired,  then  impatient,  sometimes  ugly. 
Then  Whistler  would  no  longer  like  them,  and  the 
sittings  would  come  to  an  end.  If  the  portrait  was 
unfinished,  it  was  cast  aside  to  remain  forever  un- 
finished ;  if  finished,  the  money  would  be  returned 
and  the  portrait  kept, — under  no  circumstances  to 
fall  into  the  hands  of  a  person  whom  he  disliked. 

The  studio  contained  many  an  unfinished  portrait, 
some  of  them  works  of  great  beauty,  but  of  com- 

271 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


plete  indifference  to  Whistler.  He  lost  all  interest 
in  them  when  he  lost  interest  in  the  sitters  ;  and  it 
mattered  not  to  him  that  he  had  spent  and  lost  days, 
and  weeks,  and  months  of  precious  time,  nor  did 
it  matter  to  him  that  his  sitters  had  exhausted  them- 
selves with  numerous  and  long  seances. 

Childless,  his  paintings  were  his  children,  and  to 
part  with  one  was  like  the  parting  of  mother  and 
child. 

In  these  days,  when  the  selling  of  pictures  has 
become  an  essential  part  of  the  art  of  painting,  it  is 
difficult  for  people  to  comprehend  the  attitude  of  a 
man  who  really  did  not  like  to  sell. 

"What  are  pictures  painted  for,  if  not  to  sell?" 
asks  the  spirit  of  the  age. 

It  does  not  seem  quite  so  obvious  that  poems  are 
written  to  sell  and  that  music  is  composed  to  sell. 
Even  the  "  practical  man"  feels  that  poems  and 
music  ought  to  be  made  for  something  more  than 
to  sell,  and  if  they  are  not,  they  will  be  the  worst 
for  the  narrow  end  in  view  ;  but  paintings  and 
sculpture,  they  are  commercial  products  to  be  dealt 
in  accordingly. 

When  Whistler  did  part  with  a  picture  he  had  no 
faculty  for  getting  a  high  price.  His  prices  were 
very  uncertain.  To  one  person  he  might  ask  a 
round  sum,  to  another  small, — just  as  the  mood 
seized  him,  the  price  having  no  particular  relation 
to  the  painting. 

He  never  could  see  why  paintings  should  be  sold, 
272 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


like  cloth,  by  the  square  yard  ;  why  a  large  picture 
should  necessarily  bring  more  than  a  small.  To  him 
perfection  was  perfection,  whether  large  or  small. 

What  justifiable  reason  is  there  for  the  commer- 
cial schedule  of  so  much  for  a  head,  so  much  for 
a  half-length,  so  much  for  a  full-length  portrait? 

The  one  may,  but  does  by  no  means  necessarily, 
take  a  little  more  time  ;  but,  then,  a  painter  does 
not  value  his  work  by  the  day. 

A  perfect  thing  is  a  perfect  thing,  whether  large 
or  small,  Whistler  would  frequently  say.  In  the 
matter  of  prices  he  was  obliged  to  yield  somewhat 
to  custom,  and  ask  more  for  large  pictures  than  for 
small,  but  he  did  so  reluctantly  and  intermittently, 
with  the  natural  result  that  dealers,  who  screen  pic- 
tures as  the  plasterer  does  his  gravel,  could  do 
nothing  with  him. 

Of  late  years,  with  a  demand  far  beyond  any  pos- 
sible supply,  his  prices  advanced  ;  but  where  a 
Degas,  for  instance,  would  sell  for  five,  ten,  or  fifteen 
thousand  dollars,  a  Whistler  of  incomparably  greater 
beauty  would  sell  for  a  third  or  a  fifth  the  amount, — 
proof  of  what  the  co-operation  of  the  dealer  can  do. 

Some  years  ago  he  showed  a  visitor  several  heads 
of  Italian  children,  each  about  ten  or  twelve,  by 
sixteen  or  eighteen  inches  in  size.  With  them  was 
a  three-quarter  length  of  one  of  the  children.  They 
were  all  superb  bits  of  portraiture,  and  akin  to  the 
"  Little  Rose,  Lyme  Regis,"  in  the  Boston  Museum 
of  Fine  Arts. 

is  273 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


The  visitor  was  eager  to  get  one  or  more  of  the 
pictures.    After  considerable  pressure,  he  said  : 

■ '  I  think  they  ought  to  be  worth  six  hundred  guineas 
each  ;  don't  you  ?" 

' '  And  the  large  one  ?' '  said  the  visitor. 

"Oh,  the  same.  That  is  no  more  important  than  the 
small. ' ' 

' *  Very  well.    May  I  have  all  four  ?' ' 
"Dear  me  !    You  don't  want  them  all  ?" 
"  If  you  will  let  me  have  them." 

"  But — "  and  then  the  struggle  began,  "  I  must  look  them 
over  ;  they  are  not  quite  finished." 
"But,  surely,  these  two  are  finished." 
' '  Yes,  I  might  let  those  go  by-and-bye,  but  not  now. ' ' 
* '  Will  you  send  them  to  me  ?' ' 

' '  Yes,  certainly,  after  I  have  gone  over  them  again. ' ' 
"I  will  leave  a  check." 

' '  God  bless  me,  no  !  You  must  not  do  that.  It  will  be 
time  enough  to  send  a  check  after  you  receive  the  little  pic- 
tures. 1 ' 

Needless  to  say,  the  pictures  were  never  received. 
They  had  just  been  finished,  and  he  could  not  bring 
himself  to  part  with  them.  It  was  not  a  matter  of 
money  at  all, — likely  as  not  he  sold  them  later  for 
less, — but  it  was  always  next  to  impossible  to  get 
him  to  part  with  recent  work.  If  he  happened  to 
have  on  hand  a  picture  five  or  ten  years  old,  pos- 
sibly that  could  be  bought  and  taken  away,  but 
anything  in  which  he  was  interested  at  the  time 
he  would  not  let  go. 

In  1894  he  exhibited  three  small  marines,  which 
he  had  painted  off-shore  while  the  boatman  steadied 

274 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


his  boat  They  were  fresh  and  crisp, — so  good  that 
a  great  painter  of  marines  said  of  them  in  the  exhi- 
bition, "They  over-topped  everything  about  them." 

Two  were  sold,  and  he  showed  the  third  to  an  American 
who  came  to  the  studio.  The  caller  said  at  once  he  would 
be  only  too  glad  to  take  it  at  the  price  named  ;  the  matter 
was  apparently  closed,  and  the  buyer  sailed  for  home,  leaving 
a  friend  to  get  the  picture. 

A  day  or  two  after,  Whistler  stood  looking  long  and  earn- 
estly at  the  little  marine,  saying  half  to  himself  : 

"  It  is  good,  isn't  it  ?" 

Then  he  took  the  canvas  out  of  the  frame,  and  said  : 

"  I  think  it  needs  touching  up  a  little." 

Another  pause,  then  :  ' 

'*  Do  you  know,  I  believe  I  won't  let  this  go  just  yet.  I 
want  to  go  over  it  once  more.  You  know,  I  can  send  your 
friend  something  else  next  winter, — something  that  he  may 
like  better.  And  if  he  doesn't  like  it,  why,  he  can  return 
it." 

"  But,  Mr.  Whistler,  he  wants  this  little  marine.    There  is 
not  much  to  do  upon  it,  is  there  ?" 
"  No — o  ;  but,  then,  you  see  " 

'*  Well,  why  not  give  it  the  last  touches  now,  and  let  him 
have  it.  If  you  do  not  send  him  this,  I  am  afraid  he  will 
never  have  one  of  your  pictures." 

"Oh,  yes,  he  will  ;  next  winter  " 

' '  But  next  winter  others  will  come  in  when  we  are  not 
here,  and  buy  from  you  whatever  you  have. ' ' 
'  *  Well,  we  will  see.  * ' 

And  only  persistent  urgings,  day  after  day,  even 
after  a  draft  on  London  had  been  forced  upon  him, 
induced  him  to  ship  the  painting. 

At  no  time  was  there  any  question  of  price  or 
275 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


money  involved  ;  he  simply  did  not  wish  to  part 
with  the  last  of  his  three  marines. 

It  was  not  until  about  1890,  and  after,  that  Whist- 
ler's paintings  began  to  sell  at  anything  like  their 
real  worth.  To  his  credit  be  it  said,  his  work  was 
never  "  popular." 

By  his  independence,  his  seeming  defiance  of  all 
conventional  and  academic  notions  in  his  art,  his 
eccentricities,  and  his  lack  of  commercial  instincts 
he  managed,  at  a  very  early  period  in  his  career,  to 
alienate, — 

Dealers, 

Painters,  and 

Public, 

the  three  factors  upon  which  commercial  success 
depends. 

"A  millionaire — one  who  was  getting  up  an  art- 
gallery — went  to  Whistler's  studio  and  glanced  cas- 
ually at  the  pictures. 

"  '  How  much  for  the  lot  ?'  he  asked,  with  the 
confidence  of  one  who  owns  gold  mines. 

"  *  Your  millions,'  said  Whistler. 

"'What !' 

" '  My  posthumous  prices.'  And  the  painter 
added,  '  Good-morning.'  " 


276 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


X 

The  School  of  Carmen — In  Search  of  Health — 
Chelsea  once  more — The  End. 

To  please  Madame  Carmen  Rossi,  who  as  a  child 
had  been  one  of  his  best  models,  Whistler  con- 
sented in  1897  to  criticise  the  work  of  such  students 
as  might  attend  her  school.  As  a  result  Carmen's 
atelier  was  for  the  time  being  the  most  distinguished 
in  Paris,  and  it  was  not  uncommon  to  see  carriages 
with  coachmen  and  footmen  in  livery  before  the 
door  on  the  days  that  Whistler  was  expected. 

As  he  passed  about  among  the  pupils  he  seldom 
praised  and  was  never  enthusiastic.  He  would 
sometimes  stand  many  minutes  before  a  canvas  that 
merited  his  attention  and  would  suggest  changes 
and  improvements  ;  and  now  and  then  he  took  a 
brush  and  made  the  alterations  himself,  remarking, 
if  the  student  were  a  young  woman,  "Now  you  have 
a  Whistler  all  to  your  charming  self." 

The  story  is  told  that  once  he  stopped  before  a 
very  brilliant  canvas,  and  exclaimed,  "  Hideous  ! 
hideous !"  The  student  said,  somewhat  proudly, 
that  she  had  taken  private  lessons  from  Bouguereau, 
and  he  blandly  inquired,  "  Bouguereau,  Bouguereau, 
— who  is  Bouguereau?" 

277 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


A  pupil  has  printed  some  reminiscences  of  those 
days  : 1 

"  Usually  Mr.  Whistler  came  once  a  week  to  criticise  us, 
and  on  those  days  the  class,  numbering  anywhere  from  fif- 
teen to  forty,  had  been  instructed  to  adopt  a  certain  respect- 
ful mode  of  bearing  on  the  arrival  of  the  master  ;  so,  when 
the  concierge  threw  wide  the  door  and  formally  announced, 
•  Monsieur  Whistler, '  every  student  had  risen  to  return  his 
ceremonious  salutation.  Vividly  I  recall  the  scene  :  a  man 
of  not  much  more  than  medium  stature,  but  so  slight  as  to 
give  the  impression,  when  standing  apart  from  others,  of 
being  much  taller  ;  dressed  entirely  in  black,  even  to  the 
suede  gloves  ;  every  garment  immaculate  in  fit  and  condi- 
tion ;  a  little  red  rosette  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  of  France 
forming  the  only  spot  of  color  about  him  until  a  faint  flush 
rose  to  his  cheek  as  he  greeted  the  class  with  kindly  smile. 

"Then,  as  massier  (or  monitor,  in  charge  of  the  class),  he 
passed  me  his  long,  black,  fur-lined  coat  and  tall,  straight- 
brimmed  hat, — those  well-known  targets  for  the  caricaturist, 
— and  began  his  criticism  by  inspecting  every  drawing  and 
weighing  its  merits — if  any  there  were,  as  only  too  rarely 
happened — before  uttering  a  word.  This  silent  inspection 
finished,  Mr.  Whistler  usually  asked  for  a  palette, — preferably 
mine,  because  it  was  patterned  after  his  own,  and  made  him 
'feel  at  home,'  as  he  expressed  it, — and  then,  without  re- 
moving his  gloves,  painted  a  few  strokes  here  and  there  on 
some  of  the  pupils'  work.  Even  in  the  matter  of  a  palette 
he  evinced  marked  sentiment.  A  carelessly  kept  one  was, 
above  all,  his  particular  abhorrence,  and  generally  elicited 
some  such  remark  as  the  following  :  '  My  friends,  have  you 
noticed  the  way  in  which  a  musician  cares  for  his  violin — 
how  beautiful  it  is  ?  how  well  kept  ?  how  tenderly  handled  ? 
Your  palette  is  your  instrument,  its  colors  the  notes,  and 
upon  it  you  play  your  symphonies. ' 


1  E.  S.  Crawford,  in  The  Reader,  September,  1903. 
278 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


"As  an  instructor  he  was  courteous  to  each  pupil,  but 
naturally  most  interested  in  those  who  followed  his  precepts 
closest.  Sometimes  he  jested  at  the  expense  of  a  luckless 
pupil.  I  remember  an  amusing  instance.  Smoking  was  pro- 
hibited on  the  days  for  criticism,  since  our  master  believed  it 
clouded  the  atelier  and  in  some  degree  obscured  a  view  of 
the  model.  One  day,  upon  entering,  Mr.  Whistler  noticed 
an  Englishman,  much  addicted  to  his  huge  cigars,  who  con- 
tinued puffing  away  contentedly  during  the  'criticism.'  Mr. 
Whistler  turned  quickly,  asking  me  why  his  wishes  were  not 
enforced  ;  but  before  I  could  frame  a  reply  he  had  addressed 
our  British  friend,  saying,  1  Er — my  dear  sir,  I  know  you  do 
not  smoke  to  show  disrespect  to  my  request  that  the  students 
should  refrain  from  smoking  on  the  days  I  come  to  them,  nor 
would  you  desire  to  infringe  upon  the  rules  of  the  atelier — 
but — er — it  seems  to  me — er — that  when  you  are  painting — 
er — you  might  possibly  become  so  absorbed  in  your  work  as 
to — er — well — let  your  cigar  go  out.'  I  often  remarked  a 
whimsical  affectation  of  Mr.  Whistler  in  his  manner  of  speech 
with  different  pupils  in  his  class, — we  were  a  diverse  lot  from 
many  lands,  Americans  and  English  predominating.  If  criti- 
cising an  American,  for  instance,  Mr.  Whistler's  choice  of 
language,  and  in  some  cases  his  accent,  would  become  mark- 
edly English  in  form  ;  while  in  addressing  an  Englishman 
he  would  adopt  the  Yankee  drawl,  sometimes  adding  a  touch 
of  local  slang.  I  subsequently  learned  that  these  were  his 
customary  tactics,  even  in  society,  but  in  class  criticism  he 
always  addressed  us  in  French. ' ' 

His  methods  of  teaching  were  original.  He  laid 
little  stress  on  drawing.  He  hated  and  despised 
academic  treatment.  He  wanted  the  pupil  to  paint. 
A  few  careful  charcoal  strokes  on  the  canvas  as  a 
guide,  the  rest  to  be  drawn  in  with  brush  and  color. 
And  he  preached  simplicity, — as  few  tones  as  pos- 

279 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


sible,  as  low  as  possible.  But  it  is  painful  to  record 
that  the  endeavors  of  a  certain  proportion  of  the 
class  to  attempt  the  achievements  of  the  master  in 
this  respect  resulted  in  a  unique  crop  of  posters. 
The  constant  theme  of  his  discourse  was  "  mix- 
tures." He  advised  a  pupil  to  get  first  on  his 
palette  a  correct  and  sufficient  mixture  of  each  tone 
required  for  his  picture.  Often  he  would  give  a 
long  criticism  without  so  much  as  glancing  at  the 
canvas, — a  criticism  on  the  mixtures  he  found  on  the 
pupil's  palette  ;  and  he  himself  would  work  indefi- 
nitely at  the  colors,  and  all  the  while  talking,  till 
it  appeared  to  him  to  be  satisfactory.  "And  then," 
says  an  enthusiastic  young  artist,  "when  he  did 
take  up  some  of  the  color  and  transfer  it  to  the 
canvas,  why,  it  would  just  sing." 

"One  day  on  entering  the  class-room  he  discovered  that 
a  red  background  had  been  arranged  behind  the  model.  He 
was  horrified,  and  directed  the  students  to  put  up  something 
duller  in  tone. 

"Then  he  scraped  out  the  red  paint  on  a  pupil's  canvas 
and  proceeded  to  mix  and  lay  on  a  new  background.  Some- 
how the  red  would  show  through,  and  he  found  it  difficult  to 
satisfy  himself  with  the  effect  he  produced.  He  mixed  and 
studied  and  scraped,  working  laboriously,  surrounded  by  a 
group  of  admiring  students.    Finally,  he  remarked  : 

"  '  I  suppose  you  know  what  I'm  trying  to  do  ?' 

"  'Oh,  yes,  sir,'  they  chorused. 

"'Well,  it's  more  than  I  know  myself,'  he  grimly 
replied. ' ' 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  his  epigrammatic  utterances 
which  hung  on  the  walls  of  the  Carmen  Rossi 

280 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


school  have  been  preserved,  for  they  would  be  val- 
uable additions  to  the  "Propositions"  and  "Ten 
o'Clock"  already  published. 

With  none  of  the  instincts  of  the  teacher,  he  in 
time  lost  interest  in  the  school.  After  a  year  or 
two  his  visits  became  infrequent,  and  upon  leaving 
Paris  his  connection  ceased. 

The  studio  in  Notre  Dame  des  Champs  and  the 
home  on  the  Rue  du  Bac  were  closed  a  few  years 
after  the  death  of  Mrs.  Whistler,  and  he  made  his 
home  once  more  in  Chelsea,  at  74  Cheyne  Walk, 
with  frequent  excursions  to  the  Continent. 

In  the  winter  of  1 901  he  was  at  Ajaccio,  and  he 
wrote  to  a  friend  :  "  You  will  be  surprised  at  this 
present  address.  But  it's  all  right, — "  Napoleon  and 
I,  you  know." 

In  another  letter  to  the  same  friend,  speaking  of 
a  public  official  with  whom  he  had  some  legal 
transactions,  he  remarks:  "Say  that  I  know  how 
devotedly  kind  he  has  been  in  his  care  of  me,  but 
the  care  of  the  state  overwhelms  him.  You  can- 
not serve  the  republic  .  .  .  and  Whistler." 

For  many  years  his  heart  had  troubled  him,  and 
towards  the  last  the  warnings  came  more  frequently 
and  persistently.  The  year  before  his  death  he  was 
quite  ill  at  The  Hague,  and  one  of  the  London 
papers  printed  the  following  of  a  semi-obituary 
flavor  : 

"  Mr.  Whistler  is  so  young  in  spirit  that  his  friends 
281 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


must  have  read  with  surprise  the  Dutch  physician's 
pronouncement  that  the  present  illness  is  due  to 
'  advanced  age.'  In  England  sixty-seven  is  not  ex- 
actly regarded  as  '  advanced  age  ;'  but  even  for  the 
gay  '  butterfly'  time  does  not  stand  still,  and  some 
who  are  unacquainted  with  the  details  of  Mr. 
Whistler's  career,  though  they  may  know  his  work 
well,  will  be  surprised  to  hear  that  he  was  exhibit- 
ing at  the  Academy  forty-three  years  ago.  His 
contributions  to  the  exhibition  of  1859  were  'Two 
Etchings  from  Nature,'  and  at  intervals  during  the 
following  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  Mr.  Whistler  was 
represented  at  the  Academy  by  a  number  of 
works,  both  paintings  and  etchings.  In  1863  his 
contributions  numbered  seven  in  all,  and  in  1865 
four.  Among  his  Academy  pictures  of  1865  was  the 
famous  '  Little  White  Girl,'  1  the  painting  that  at- 
tracted so  much  attention  at  the  Paris  Exhibition  of 
1900.  This  picture — rejected  at  the  Salon  of  1863 — 
was  inspired,  though  the  fact  seems  to  have  been  for- 
gotten of  late,  by  the  following  lines  of  Swinburne  : 

"  '  Come  snow,  come  wind  or  thunder 
High  up  in  air, 
I  watch  my  face  and  wonder 
At  my  bright  hair,  etc.,  etc'  " 

The  item  called  forth  the  following  characteristic 
correction,  dated  from  The  Hague  : 

' '  Sir  :  I  feel  it  no  indiscretion  to  speak  of  my  '  convales- 
cence' since  you  have  given  it  official  existence. 


1  See  page  185. 
282 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


"May  I  therefore  acknowledge  the  tender  little  glow  of 
health  induced  by  reading,  as  I  sat  here  in  the  morning  sun, 
the  flattering  attention  paid  me  by  your  gentleman  of  ready 
wreath  and  quick  biography. 

' '  I  cannot,  as  I  look  at  my  improving  self  with  daily  satis- 
faction, really  believe  it  all  ;  still  it  has  helped  to  do  me 
good.  And  it  is  with  almost  sorrow  that  I  must  beg  you, 
perhaps,  to  put  back  into  its  pigeon-hole,  for  later  on,  this 
present  summary,  and  replace  it  with  something  preparatory 
— which,  doubtless,  you  have  also  ready. 

1 '  This  will  give  you  time,  moreover,  for  some  correction, 
— if  really  it  be  worth  while.  But  certainly  the  *  Little  White 
Girl,'  which  was  not  rejected  at  the  Salon  of  '63,  was,  I  am 
forced  to  say,  not  '  inspired  by  the  following  lines  of  Swin- 
burne,' for  the  one  simple  reason  that  those  lines  were  only 
written,  in  my  studio,  after  the  picture  was  painted.  And 
the  writing  of  them  was  a  rare  and  graceful  tribute  from  the 
poet  to  the  painter — a  noble  recognition  of  one  work  by  the 
production  of  a  nobler  one. 

"Again,  of  'the  many  tales  concerning  the  hanging,  at 
the  Academy,  of  the  well-known  portrait  of  the  artist's 
mother,  now  at  the  Luxembourg,'  one  is  true — let  us  trust 
your  gentleman  may  have  time  to  find  it  out — that  I  may 
correct  it.  I  surely  may  always  hereafter  rely  on  the  Morn- 
ing Post  to  see  that  no  vulgar  Woking  joke  reach  me. 

"  It  is  my  marvellous  privilege,  then,  to  come  back,  as  who 
should  say,  while  the  air  is  still  warm  with  appreciation, 
affection,  and  regret,  and  to  learn  in  how  little  I  had 
offended. 

' '  The  continuing  to  wear  my  own  hair  and  eyebrows, 
after  distinguished  confreres  and  eminent  persons  had  long 
ceased  their  habit,  has,  I  gather,  clearly  given  pain.  This, 
I  see,  is  much  remarked  on.  It  is  even  found  inconsiderate 
and  unseemly  in  me,  as  hinting  at  affectation. 

' '  I  might  beg  you,  sir,  to  find  a  pretty  place  for  this,  that 
I  would  make  my  'apology,'  containing  also  promise,  in 

283 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


years  to  come,  to  lose  these  outer  signs  of  vexing  presump- 
tion. 

"Protesting,  with  full  enjoyment  of  its  unmerited  eulogy, 
against  your  premature  tablet,  I  ask  you  again  to  contradict 
it,  and  appeal  to  your  own  sense  of  kind  sympathy  when  I 
tell  you  I  learn  that  I  have,  lurking  in  London,  still  'a 
friend' — though  for  the  life  of  me  I  cannot  remember  his 
name. 

• '  And  I  have,  sir,  the  honor  to  be 

"J.  McNeill  Whistler." 

In  the  spring  of  1903,  only  a  few  months  before 
his  death,  three  of  his  pictures  were  withdrawn  from 
the  annual  exhibition  of  the  Society  of  American 
Artists  in  New  York.  They  had  not  been  sent  in 
by  him,  but  loaned  by  the  owner  upon  the  under- 
standing they  would  be  given  the  prominence  which 
he  thought  Whistler's  work  deserved. 

In  the  absence  of  the  owner  in  Europe  the  whole 
matter  was  left  in  charge  of  a  member  of  the  society, 
— a  well-known  artist, — who,  when  he  saw  where 
the  committee  had  placed  the  little  pictures,  promptly 
withdrew  them,  and  notified  the  owner  of  his  action, 
which  was  approved. 

Whistler  learned  of  the  matter,  and  wrote  the  fol- 
lowing letter  : 

"Dear  Mr.  L  :  I  have  just  learned  with  distress 

that  my  canvases  have  been  a  trouble  and  a  cause  of  thought 
to  the  gentlemen  of  the  hanging  committee. 

"Pray  present  to  them  my  compliments  and  my  deep 
regrets. 

' '  I  fear  also  that  this  is  not  the  first  time  of  simple  and 
good-natured  intrusion, — 'looking  in,'  as  who  should  say, 

284 


OF  JAMES  A.  McNEILL  whistler 


with  beaming  fellowship  and  crass  camaraderie  upon  the 
highly-finished  table  and  well-seated  guests, — to  be  kindly 
and  swiftly  shuffled  into  some  further  respectable  place,  that 
all  be  well  and  hospitality  endure. 

"  Promise,  then,  for  me,  that  I  have  learned  and  that  this 
*  shall  not  occur  again.'  And,  above  all,  do  not  allow  a 
matter  of  colossal  importance  to  ever  interfere  with  the  after- 
noon habit  of  peace  and  good  will  and  the  leaf  of  the  mint 
so  pleasantly  associated  with  this  society. 

"  I  could  not  be  other  than  much  affected  by  your  warm 
and  immediate  demonstration,  but  I  should  never  forgive 
myself  were  the  consequences  of  lasting  vexation  to  your 

distinguished  confreres,  and,  believe  me,  dear  Mr.  L  , 

very  sincerely, 

"J.  McNeill  Whistler. 

"  London,  April  7,  1903." 

To  the  end  he  worked  with  indefatigable  energy, 
save  only  those  days  and  hours  when  he  was  com- 
pelled by  exhaustion  or  by  the  physicians  to  rest. 

Work  was  a  tonic  to  him,  and,  while  painting,  the 
rebellious  organs  of  his  body  were  submissive  to  his 
genius. 

He  would  forget  himself  when,  brush  in  hand,  he 
stood  before  a  canvas. 

During  the  spring  of  1903  he  had  been  far  from 
well.  Into  May  he  worked,  but  not  regularly  nor 
for  long  at  a  time.  In  June  he  was  quite  ill,  and 
his  friends  were  apprehensive  ;  but  in  the  early  part 
of  July  he  began  to  gain,  so  that  he  took  long  drives 
and  planned  resuming  his  work. 

On  the  afternoon  of  July  16  he  was  out  for  a 
drive  and  in  the  best  of  spirits,  with  plans  for  the 

285 


RECOLLECTIONS  AND  IMPRESSIONS 


future  that  even  a  younger  man  could  not  hope  to 
execute. 

Art,  the  ever-youthful  mistress  of  his  life,  urged 
him  on.  Should  he  confess  before  her  the  ravages 
of  years?  In  dauntless  enthusiasm,  in  boundless 
ambition,  in  spirit  unsubdued  he  was  still  young.  He 
struggled  to  his  feet  and  for  the  last  time  stood  be- 
fore the  canvas, — the  magic  mirror  from  which  he, 
wizzard-like,  had  evoked  so  many  beautiful  images  ; 
he  thought  of  the  things  he  yet  would  do,  of  lines 
that  would  charm  for  all  time,  of  colors  that  would 
play  like  the  iridescent  hues  upon  the  surface  of  the 
shimmering  sea,  of  the  wraith-like  images  of  people 
which  lurked  in  the  depths  of  the  canvas  awaiting 
the  touch  of  his  wand  to  step  forth  in  all  their  stately 
dignity  and  beauty. 

And  the  soul  of  the  master  was  filled  with 
delight. 

But  the  visions  of  beauty  were  shattered, 
Like  forms  of  the  mist  they  were  scattered — 
As  bubbles  are  blown  by  a  breath — 
By  the  grim,  haunting  spectre  of  Death. 

The  tired  body  could  not  respond,  and  there 
where  he  had  worked,  on  the  afternoon  of  Friday, 
July  17,  the  great  painter  died. 

On  the  following  Wednesday  the  funeral  services 
were  held  in  the  old  church  at  Chelsea  where  he 
often  went  with  his  mother,  and  he  was  buried  be- 
side her  in  the  graveyard  at  Chiswick. 

286 


"  We  have  then  but  to  wait — until  with  the  mark  of  the 
gods  upon  him — there  come  among  us  again  the  chosen — 
who  shall  continue  what  has  gone  before.  Satisfied  that, 
even  were  he  never  to  appear,  the  story  of  the  beautiful  is 
already  complete — hewn  in  the  marbles  of  the  Parthenon — 
and  broidered,  with  the  birds,  upon  the  fan  of  Hokusai — at 
the  foot  of  jFusiyama. " — Whistler' s  • '  Ten  o'  Clock. ' ' 


INDEX 


Ajaccio,  281 
Albany,  33 

Allen,  Sir  William,  35 

America,  attitude  towards,  52-53 ;  desire  to  visit,  22 ;  trip 
to  South  America,  22-23 

American  appreciation,  15-17;  art,  future  of,  63-64;  char- 
acteristics, 64-65 

Americanism,  Whistler's,  47-48 

Ancestors,  25-28 

Anecdotes  and  sayings,  as  a  teacher,  277-281 ;  attitude 
towards  America,  52-53 ;  authenticity  of  stories,  81-82 ; 
bailiff  in  the  "White  House,"  112-113;  Balaam's  ass, 
84-85;  blue-and-white  china,  70;  Boer  war,  45; 
Carlyle  portrait,  123;  colors  and  pigments  used,  72-73; 
concerning  a  sitter,  238-239;  concerning  birth,  29;  con- 
cerning Carlyle  and  Miss  Alexander,  121 ;  concerning 
Chicago,  27;  concerning  each  portrait,  241-242;  con- 
cerning his  portraits,  255  ;  concerning  poor  lawyers,  148 ; 
concerning  purchasers,  265-266;  concerning  sittings  re- 
quired, 30-31 ;  continually  polishing,  84-85  ;  Dieppe,  34; 
disintegration  of  the  Royal  Society  of  British  Artists, 
218;  early  days  in  Paris,  86-88;  early  days  in  Venice, 
92-95;  effacing  an  insult,  43;  falling  down  stairs,  114; 
first  money  earned  with  brush,  80-81 ;  Henry  James,  85  ; 
his  umbrella,  227 ;  Hogarth,  55 ;  house-painters,  212 ; 
late  to  dinner,  29-30;  Leighton,  82-84;  in  lithography 
suit,  103;  man  whose  coat  did  not  fit,  42;  "Nana,"  151- 
153;  Napoleon  and  I,  281;  Nature  looking  up,  214; 
necktie  of  a  sitter,  191 ;  no  artistic  period,  73-78 ;  old 
Delft,  71;  painting  in  the  dark,  214;  "  Peacock  Room," 
129 ;  of  Peter  the  Great,  35 ;  railway  accident,  33-34 ; 
rebuking  an  admirer,  162 ;  rich  man's  house,  56 ;  Ros- 
setti,  111;  Royal  Academy,  116-119;  Savoy  Hotel,  181; 
school,  61 ;  selling  his  pictures,  274-275 ;  Stoeckl  dinner, 
»9  289 


INDEX 


40-41;  story  of  "The  Yellow  Buskin,"  1 19-120;  studio 
on  ground  floor,  229;  the  arrangement  in  gray,  194;  the 
color  of  a  critic's  clothes,  195 ;  the  grocer's  shop,  193- 
194;  the  millionaire,  276;  the  model  and  the  red  back- 
ground, 280;  the  pupil  who  smoked,  279;  the  republic 
and  Whistler,  281 ;  the  Ruskin  trial,  144-147 ;  the  studio 
stove,  231;  to  the  Prince  of  Wales,  217;  trip  to  Val- 
paraiso, 22-23  >  unwelcome  callers  at  studio,  228 ;  visit 
of  students  to  his  studio,  134-135 ;  "  warm  personal 
enemy,"  156;  West  Point,  36;  while  in  service  of  Coast 
and  Geodetic  Survey,  37-41 
Angelo,  Michael,  253 

Appearance  and  characteristics,  36 ;  alertness,  85 ;  a  poser, 
149-155;  approachable,  except  in  studio,  227-228;  as  a 
story-teller,  224;  at  home,  222;  attitude  towards  art 
and  artists,  122;  attitude  towards  nature,  213-216;  atti- 
tude towards  other  artists,  56;  attitude  towards  pur- 
chasers, 265-272;  attitude  towards  the  Royal  Academy, 
115-119;  careless  about  keeping  list  of  works,  90;  cour- 
age, 42-43 ;  dilatory  habits,  37-41 ;  dress  when  a  young 
man,  41-42;  George  Moore's  theory,  168-172;  his  Amer- 
icanism, 47-78;  his  dislikes  and  prejudices,  271-272; 
laugh,  119;  military  spirit,  45-46;  no  commercial  in- 
stinct, 111;  no  mystery  about  his  art,  106-108;  on  the 
street,  226;  Puritan  element,  49-50;  refinement,  50; 
sense  of  humor,  82;  superstitions,  44;  susceptibility  to 
color  intervals,  191-195;  West  Point,  44;  when  twenty, 
38-40 

Art,  abstract  use  of  color,  211 ;  and  physique,  168-172;  early 
love  for,  35;  harmonies  in  line,  182;  his  paintings  and 
poetry,  182;  of  pure  line,  180-181 ;  Oriental,  176;  purely 
sensuous,  180 

Artistic  period,  73-78 

Autograph  character  of  work,  105-106 

Balcony,"  "  The,  58 

Baptism,  32 

Baronet  vs.  The  Butterfly,  266-270 
Beauties  of  form  and  color,  185-186 
Beethoven,  257;  relation  to,  176 
Birth,  28-29,  31-32 

290 


INDEX 

Boston,  proposed  exhibition  of  pictures,  20 

Bouguereau,  277 

Boxall,  Sir  William,  53-54 

Brothers  and  sisters,  32 

Burne-Jones,  176 ;  Ruskin  trial,  146 

Carlyle,  119;  and  Froude,  122-123;  as  a  friend,  121-122 

Catalogues,  167-168,  265 ;    of  exhibition  in  1892,  160-161 ; 

of  lithographs,  104.    See  Exhibitions 
Character.    See  Appearance  and  characteristics 
Chelsea,  Carlyle  as  neighbor  and  sitter,  121-122 ;  Carlyle's 

description,  109-111;    death  and  last  illness,  285-286; 

early  days  in,  109;  his  last  home,  281-286;  the  bailiff, 

112-113;    "White  House,"  112-113;    "White  House" 

occupied  by  a  critic,  114 
Chicago,  grandfather  founded,  26-27 

Chinese  and  Japanese  art,  181 ;  autograph  character  of 
Japanese  art,  105-106 ;  blue  china,  61 ;  degradation  of 
Japanese  art,  78;  influence  of,  55 

Chiswick,  buried  at,  286 

Coast  and  Geodetic  Survey,  39-40 

Color,  "  ability  to  feel,"  208 ;  abstract  composition,  197 ;  and 
the  musical  scale,  195-196 ;  art  of  pure  color,  180-181 ; 
beauties  of,  185-186;  decoration,  128-135;  first  color 
harmonies,  58;  his  own  explanation  of,  178-180;  illus- 
trated in  different  pictures,  211 ;  in  Italy  and  Greece,  198; 
of  sculptor,  206;  range  of  color-notes,  189-191 ;  Rus- 
kin's  attitude  towards,  158-160,  199-208;  Ruskin  trial, 
145-146 ;  sense  of,  lost,  183-184 ;  supreme  as  a  colorist, 
173;  the  house-painter  and  decorator,  186;  used  imita- 
tively,  204,  207,  209;  Whistler's  susceptibility  to,  191- 
195 

Colorist.    See  Color 
Commercial  side,  lacking,  265-276 
Conversation,  a  lost  art,  149-151 
Courage,  33,  36,  42-43 
Criticism,  language  of,  161 
Criticisms  in  America,  15-16 

Critics,  arraignment  of,  in  catalogue,  98-102,  160-161,  167" 
168 

Critics  and  criticisms,  attitude  towards,  162-165  I  early  criti- 

291 


INDEX 


cism  of  Turner,  142-143;  George  Moore,  168-172;  his 
attitude  towards,  155-157;  his  color  harmonies  not  un- 
derstood, 184;  is  the  painter  the  final  judge?  162-165; 
order  of  appreciation,  173-175  ;  Ruskin's  attitude  towards 
color,  158-160;  "Voice  of  a  People,"  165-167 

Dealers,  attitude  towards,  276 

Death  and  last  illness,  285-286 

Decoration,  127-133;   as  a  decorator,  131-135;   in  home  in 

Paris,  220-222;  "Peacock  Room,"  128-131,  209 
Dieppe,  33-34 
Dress,  41-42 

Eden,  Sir  William,  267-270 
England's  indifference,  47-49 
Englishman's  stupidity,  16 

Etchings,  appreciation  of  a  collector,  96-97;  of  Haden,  96; 
catalogues  of,  91 ;  early  French  criticism,  60 ;  "  French 
Set,"  90;  Haden  collection  of,  96;  his  first,  88-89;  his 
"  Venice  Set,"  91 ;  "  Thames  Set,"  91 ;  "  Twenty-six 
Etchings,"  91 

Exhibitions,  1868,  177;  1893,  65;  at  Antwerp,  263;  at  Chi- 
cago, 263;  at  London,  265;  at  Paris,  1894,  24,  264;  at 
the  Royal  Academy,  114-119;  criticisms  of,  98-101;  his 
catalogues,  99-101 ;  light  and  background  required  for 
his  pictures,  134-139;  of  etchings,  1883,  97;  of  litho- 
graphs, 104;  reluctant  about  exhibiting,  262-264;  Soci- 
ety of  American  Artists  in  1903,  284-285;  Society  of 
British  Artists,  136 ;  special,  120-121 ;  with  artificial 
light,  135;  "Yellow  and  White,"  98,  132 

Family,  25-28 ;  brothers  and  sisters,  32 ;  father,  27-28,  35 ; 
mother,  28;  mother's  diary,  34-35 

Fine  Arts  Society,  121 

Foreword,  7 

Form,  appreciation  of,  203 

Fort  Dearborn,  grandfather  built,  26-27 

French  art,  influence  of,  57-60;  criticism,  early,  59-60 

Frith,  177;  Ruskin  trial,  146 

Fur  Jacket,"  "  The,  65 

Gainesborough,  249,  250 

Gentle  Art  of  Making  Enemies,"  "The,  32,  154-155 
Glasgow  and  the  Carlyle  portrait,  124 ;  school,  55 

292 


INDEX 


Gleyre,  57,  59,  79 
Gold  Screen,"  "  The,  58 
Greece,  art  of,  63 
Grosvenor  Gallery,  ng 
Haden,  32,  88-89,  9^ 

Hague,  The,  illness  at,  281-284;  letter  from,  282-284 
Hanging  of  pictures,  124-128 

Harmonies,  symphonies,  and  nocturnes,  his  explanation  of, 
178-180 

"  Hermes,"  by  Praxiteles,  261 

Hogarth,  55,  249,  250 

Honors  and  awards,  264 

Impressionism,  72 

Ingres,  copy  of  painting  by,  80-81 

Interior  decorator,  127-128 

International  Society,  121 

Irish  ancestors,  25,  47 

Italian  painters,  influence  of,  71-72 

Japanese  art  and  influence  of,  55.    See  Chinese  and  Japanese 
art 

Khayyam,  Omar,  243 
Lange  Leizen,"  "  The,  58 
Leyland,  F.  R.,  128-131 

Light  and  background  for  pictures,  134-139 ;  as  distinguished 

from  color,  160 
Lithographs,  naming  of,  183 

Lithography,  102-104,  180.    See  Exhibitions,  Catalogues 

Lowell,  31-32 

Manet,  249-250 

Marines,  24,  274-275 

Marriage,  219 

Method.    See  Work 

Miss  Alexander,  50,  119 

"  Mona  Lisa,"  251 

Moore,  "  Modern  Painting,"  168-172 
Mother,  diary  of,  34~35  5  portrait  of,  53~54,  58,  115 
Music,  176-177;  and  color,  193;  and  painting,  179;  and  the 
color  scale,  195-196;  range  of  sounds,  186-188;  the  un- 
educated ear,  196;  "  truths  of  sound,"  203-204 
National  influence,  61-78 

293 


INDEX 

Nature  and  art,  213-216;  and  color,  216;  and  music,  215 
Naval  Academy,  37 
Nocturnes,  119.    See  Pictures 
Nude,  attitude  towards,  50-51 

Painting  and  music,  179;   flat  tones,  212;   his  manner  and 

mode  of,  231-237 
Paris  as  an  art  centre,  62-63;   early  days  in,  86-88;  home 

life  in,  222-224;  in  1855,  79;  Rue  du  Bac,  219;  studio, 

131,  132 
Pastels,  106-107 

"  Peacock  Room,"  128-131,  209;  trouble  over  payment,  129- 
130 

Phidias,  253 
Philadelphia,  120 

Physical  appearances.    See  Appearance  and  characteristics 
Picture  galleries,  124-128 

Pictures,  arrangement  of,  by  periods,  211;  "At  the  Piano," 
114,  210;  Carlyle  portrait,  123-124;  estimation  of,  261; 
exhibition  of,  to  visitors,  133-135 ;  "  Falling  Rocket," 
140 ;  hanging  of,  a  lost  art,  124-128 ;  hanging  of  portrait 
of  his  mother,  115;  "  Lange  Leizen,"  210;  marines,  212; 
naming  of,  178,  183,  185 ;  "  Nocturnes,"  "  Harmonies," 
and  "  Symphonies,"  210,  211;  present  prices  of,  114-115; 
"The  Princess  of  the  Land  of  Porcelain,"  58,  128,  210; 
"  Little  Rose,  Lyme  Regis,"  273 ;  story  of  "  The  Yellow 
Buskin,"  1 19-120;  Symphonies  in  White,  II.  and  III., 
210;  "Thames  in  Ice,"  210;  "The  Balcony,"  210; 
"The  Gold  Screen,"  210;  the  Japanese  group,  210,  211; 
"The  Music  Room,"  210;  "White  Girl,"  59-60,  109, 
210,  282 ;  "  The  Yellow  Buskin,"  65.    See  Portraits 

Pomfret,  36 

Portraits,  classification  of,  248;  color  compositions,  258; 
difference  between  Whistler  and  Velasquez,  256-258; 
each  one  to  be  a  masterpiece,  241-242;  his  best,  261- 
262;  Irving  as  Philip  II.,  119;  Lady  Campbell,  119; 
likeness,  258-262;  manner  and  mode  of  painting,  231- 
237;  Miss  Gilchrist,  119  ;  of  Lady  E  ,  269;  portrait- 
painting,  244;  sittings  required,  30-31,  235;  wraith-like 
quality,  255 

Praxiteles,  261 

294 


INDEX 


"  Propositions"  and  "  The  Ten  o'Clock,"  108 
Providence,  32 
Puritan  element,  49-50 
Racial  influence,  61-78 
Raphael,  253 

Rembrandt,  67,   175,  244,  253,  254,  255,  256;  essentially 

Dutch,  67 
Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  247,  249,  252 
Rosa  Corder,  119 
Rossetti,  in 

Rossi,  Carmen,  school  of,  277-281 

Royal  Academy,  attitude  towards,  114-119;   exhibitions  at, 

etc.,  114-119 
Royal  Society  of  British  Artists,  217 
Rue  du  Bac,  219 

Ruskin  and  flat  tones,  212;  attitude  towards  color,  158-160, 
199-208;  attitude  towards  early  criticism  of  Turner,  143; 
color  in  his  home,  207-208 ;  his  limitations,  165 ;  suit, 
140-149 

Savoy  Hotel,  181 

Sayings.    See  Anecdotes  and  sayings 

School,  no  American,  61-63;  oi  Carmen  Rossi,  277-281 

Sculptor  and  portrait  busts,  245-246 

Society  of  British  Artists,  exhibition  of,  136 

Sounds,  range  of  musical,  186-188 

Springfield,  33 

St.  Petersburg,  27-28,  34-35 

Stonington,  32,  35 

Stories.    See  Anecdotes  and  sayings 
Studio,  description  of,  230-231 ;  in  Paris,  229 
Swinburne,  74,  177 
Taylor,  Tom,  146 
Teacher,  as  a,  277-281 
"  Ten  o'Clock,"  no  artistic  period,  73-78 
Time,  dilatory  habits,  37-41 ;   indifference  to,  29-31 ;  never 
prompt,  30 

Travel,  dislike  for,  33-34 ;  effect  of,  on  artists,  69-70 
Turner  and  color,  199 ;  early  criticism  of,  142-143 ;  Whist- 
ler's appreciation  of,  56 
Valparaiso,  trip  to,  22-23 

295 


INDEX 


Velasquez,  60,  175,  244,  251,  253,  254,  255,  256,  257;  essen- 
tially Spanish,  68;  influence  of,  71 
Venice,  early  days  in,  92-95 
"  Voice  of  a  People,"  165-167 
Water-color,  his  first,  106 
Webster,  Daniel,  letter  to,  35-36 
West  Point,  35-36 
Westerly,  32 
"  White  Girl,"  53,  283 
"  White  House."    See  Chelsea 
Will,  240 

Witticisms.    See  Anecdotes  and  sayings 

Work  always  a  pleasure,  90-91 ;  as  a  decorator,  128-135 ; 
colors  and  pigments  used,  72-73 ;  description  of  method, 
231-237;  exhibition  to  visitors,  133-135;  facility  in  exe- 
cution, 23 ;  his  attitude  towards  a  sitter,  238-239,  241 ; 
painting  in  the  dark,  213-214;   volume  of,  104-105 

Yellow  Buskin,"  "The,  119,  256 


THE  END 


296 


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